Rhetoric and figures of speech

One entry near the end of this list is not a figure at all but an accident: die Stilblüte, the sentence that says something comic its writer never meant. The word to watch is its second half, because die Blüte leads three separate lives. In a garden it is a blossom, die Blüte der Kirschbäume. Of a person or an age it is the prime, in der Blüte seiner Jahre, and die Blütezeit is a golden age. And in a police report Blüten are forged banknotes: Blüten in Umlauf bringen is to pass counterfeit money. The compound takes the first sense and uses it ironically, a flower of style that nobody planted. That is also what separates it from der Kalauer on the same list: a corny pun is made on purpose and groaned at, while a howler is quoted behind its author’s back.