i discovered the word metalepsis in a book today. it meant mixing up the direction of cause and effect. this is something that causes me to grind my teeth, stomp and rage everytime i read about a survey that proves something in a decidedly backwards way. in the book i was reading the protagonist’s toddler daughter thought her cough was caused by cough medicine. you take the medicine when you have a cough, hence coughs are caused by cough medicine. sounds silly? not if you’re a journalist faced with statistics aparrently.

but the dictionary doesn’t bear out the definition. which is a pity because i really need to know the word for this concept.