Christian Metz's Le Significant imaginaire, which appeared in 1977, provides an admirable synthesis of much current theory emanating from France and la nouvelle critique. He insists on the importance of such binary systems as paradigm and syntagma, metaphor and metonymy, selection and combination, concentration and displacement, and so on. Readers of Saussure, Jakobson, Lacan, Hjelmselv, Genette, etc. are well acquainted with the terminology. The implication is that of all the distinctions available to a human mind while looking at speech, thought, or works of art, the most useful form contrastive pairs. Consideration of the specific paired oppositions current in critical writing today suggests that they can be included under the contrasting concepts of choice and contiguity. "Choice" implies exclusiveness—this rather than that, here rather than there, now rather than then—while "contiguity" is inclusive—this and neighboring that—or progressive—from this to that.