Readers, take a look at the following sentence:
He turned heads in scientific circles when he proposed that climate change is the driving force in human revolution.
Now, take a look at one writing blogger's deeply misguided opinion on how to "improve" that sentence:
The association of the past tense of the idiom “turn heads,” which means “draw sudden attention,” with the phrase “scientific circles,” a figure of speech in which the plural form of circle refers to a broad community of people with a common interest, unfortunately suggests that the subject caused the heads of his colleagues to rotate in a scientific manner. Revise one expression or the other: “He turned heads in the scientific community when he proposed that climate change is the driving force in human revolution” or “He attracted attention in scientific circles when he proposed that climate change is the driving force in human revolution."
--Three Cases of Distracting Usage from Daily Writing Tips
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The phrase that bothers this blogger so much--turned heads in scientific circles--isn't distracting at all. On the contrary, it's an important part of a highly creative pun. Correction: two puns, nested together in one sentence.
Most readers will gloss over this phrase, not noticing anything unusual. The small fraction of readers who do notice will be rewarded with a memorable and extremely subtle play on words. In other words, this phrase isn't distracting at all. It's artful.
This isn't bad writing. It's unusually good writing.
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