SOURCE: “The Transferred Epithet,” in Linguistic Inquiry, Vol. IV, No. 1, Winter, 1973, pp. 92-4.

In the following essay, Hall analyzes Wodehouse's use of the transferred epithet, contending that it lends a comic effect to his fiction.

I balanced a thoughtful lump of sugar on the teaspoon.

(P. G. Wodehouse, Joy in the Morning [1946] Chapter 5)

Hold on a minute—there must be something wrong here. Lumps of sugar aren't thoughtful, are they? What the narrator must mean is something like “I thoughtfully balanced a lump of sugar on the teaspoon,” or perhaps “I was thoughtful, and I balanced a lump of sugar on the teaspoon.” Couldn't this be the result of a momentary lapse on the part of the author, or even an unintentional transposition effected by an inattentive typesetter?

No, there is nothing wrong here. Wodehouse obviously meant what he wrote, for there are a number of other instances...