catachresis

20) Witnesses and oaths were fundamental components of Athenian court proceedings, but here a foreign slave woman distorts their significance by using the language of proof and evidence catachrestically.

Despite his theoretical indebtedness to Foucault, Said asserts his right to differ with him and to use his theory catachrestically in a way that will later be the main method of post-colonial thinkers in their adoption of Western methodological sources.