Fowler, H. W. 1908. This distinction, however, is useful only as leading up to another. And the same doubt might arise centuries hence as to the origin of a phrase so obviously artificial to us as 'glaring inconsistency'. One or two general remarks may be made before we proceed to instances. The danger lies rather in the use of live metaphor that is not intentional.
Unintentional metaphor is the source, too, of most actual blunders.
There are few obvious faults a novice is more afraid of committing than this of mixed metaphor. The following points should be observed. If only one of the metaphors is a live one, the confusion is not a confusion for practical purposes. The novice must beware, however, of being misled either by punctuation or by a parallelism that does not secure grammatical independence. I will nip him in the bud'.