As one way that language grows, Deutscher points out that when we need a word for an abstract concept, we often use a tangible word metaphorically. And eventually, the metaphorical usage may become a standard meaning of the term; it may even replace the original usage.

He gives this example-sentence. "At the cabinet meeting, ground-breaking plans were put forward by the minister for tough new legislation to curb the power of the unions." There are four metaphors here, for if one were to speak literally,

• 'groundbreaking' is something you do with a shovel, not with a plan;
• 'tough' is an attribute of meat, fabrics, etc., not of ideas;
• the minister did not physically 'push forward' the plans, he merely proposed them;
• a 'curb' is a piece of metal put into a horses mouth to control it.

Deutscher gives an entire mock-newspaper story, full of such metaphors. (I'll reproduce it below.) I'm off to see if I can find a real newspaper story filled with metaphors using concrete, tangible words to express abstract ideas.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: wordnerd,

Here's Deutscher's entire example, with metaphors highlighted.

At the cabinet meeting, ground-breaking plans were put forward by the minister for tough new legislation to curb the power of the unions. It was clear that the unions would never go along, and the conflict erupted as soon as news of the plan was leaked to the press. At the trade-union conference, the minister encountered a frosty reception. He tried to get across the idea that the excessive power of the unions was holding back economic growth. He said that while productivity had sunk in recent years, salaries were rising. But his comments were drowned by angry heckling. Any semblance of politeness collapsed when the General Secretary confronted the minister head on, saying that he was not on top of the facts, and that his figures were riddled with inaccuracies. The unions were not asking for any rise in salaries, he argued, but only wanted to avoid further cuts in real terms, by ensuring that salaries remain in line with inflation.

It was remarkably easy to find a real-world example of what Deutscher describes. All I did was google up "Bush" in Google-News, and look at the very top item. Here are excerpts:

Edit: don't you just love the phrase 'sinking support'?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush on Friday rejected calls for a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq and Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari called on Americans to stand firm . Bush and Jaafari insisted progress was being made in Iraq despite a drumbeat of bad news from Baghdad.

Insurgents have mounted a bombing campaign since Jaafari's Shi'ite-led government was formed two months ago. "This is not the time to fall back," Jaafari said. "I see from up close what's happening in Iraq and I know we are making steady and substantial progress."

Some U.S. lawmakers say a major shift in strategy is needed. Bush said the timetable he was following was Iraq's political timetable of writing a constitution by mid-August, staging a referendum on it in October and holding elections in December.

Zbigniew Brzezinski said the Iraq war was becoming a quagmire and Bush was not leveling with the public.

Bush appeared to respond to some who complained his administration had cast the Iraq conflict in a too-rosy light -- including Vice President Dick Cheney's bold assertion the Iraqi insurgency was in its "last throes," a statement the White House has defended. "It's tough work and it's hard," Bush said. "But the defeat of the enemy will be accelerated by the progress on the ground in Iraq."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president would address the American people on Tuesday night as he tries to bolster public support. Military commanders are concerned about sinking public support for the war. Jaafari pressed for a long-term U.S. commitment. "We hope that Mr. Bush will try to redo a Marshall Plan. And this would be a very wonderful step that they stand beside us," he said.

The Iraq war and Bush's own declining job approval ratings have stirred partisan passions.

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Insurgents have mounted a bombing campaign

When I read this I flashed back to Slim Pickens literally mounting a bomb as it dropped from a B 52 in the movie, "Dr. Strangelove."

Prof. George Lakoff has made a career in linguistics studying this. His books Metaphors We Live By, Women, Fire and Dangerous Things (one of my all-time favorite titles), and Don't Think of an Elephant are three of his most famous works.

Metaphors We Live By, Women, Fire and Dangerous Things
That is a great name for a book! Have you read it? How do women fit in?

Kalleh, if you read neveu's post again, you'll see "three". Metaphors We Live By is one, and Women, Fire and Dangerous Things is another. Is the latter title really missing the second comma, that kind of thing bugs me.

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Women, Fire[,] and Dangerous Things

Lakoff's title comes from one of the noun classes, or grammatical genders, of an Australian language called Dyirbal. There are three other noun classes, and the one in question is usually just called feminine. There is a subtitle to Lakoff's book: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. It's a fun read, and you can probably get it used at Powell's.

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It's a fun read, and you can probably get it used at Powell's.

Yep! Not used, but they've got his stuff! Guess where I'm going this morning! And Powell's on Hawthorne is within walking distance!

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Guess where I'm going this morning!

And those of you who do not live in Portland can just click .

OK, I've now got Don't Think of An Elephant, and right off I find an example of his using "framing" for his purposes, although his focus is on the right-wing uses of it. He uses the terms, "Democrat" and "progressive" interchangeably early on. Who's to say there aren't progressive Republicans? One of the most progressive governors this state (Oregon) has ever had was a Republican! (Tom McCall) Not of the present ilk, to be sure, BUT...

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Kalleh, if you read neveu's post again, you'll see "three". Metaphors We Live By is one, and Women, Fire and Dangerous Things is another.

Oh, heck, I hate it when I make stupid mistakes like that! I even put the darned thing in Google to see if I had the correct title, and something came up, though as it turns out it was just "the product search results for 'Methaphors We Live By, Women, Fire and Dangerous Things'."

"The dreamwork of language". That's just one of the things metaphors have been called. One thing that makes or breaks a novel for me is the author's use of original metaphors. When the author makes unlikely comparisons to highlight a certain quality, it really does something to my insides (literally). I've just finished reading DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little and some of his metaphors are brilliant ("Her features huddled in the middle of her face." "She recommended the floor to my feet.") I also appreciate Tom Robbins's and Arundhati Roy's use of original metaphor.

In fact there are lots of different categories of metaphor. The three basic ones I would say are: dead metaphors, stock metaphors and original metaphors. Dead metaphors are the ones we don't even think of as metaphors anymore, like 'eye of a needle'. Stock metaphors are the ones we may recognize as metaphors but are widely used, like 'brilliant idea' and then there are original metaphors like the ones I mentioned.

In fact the word 'metaphor' is itself a metaphor. The word in Greek means 'to carry over', 'to transfer'.

An interesting book about metaphors in different languages and cultures is Nigel Lewis's The Book of Babel: Words and the Way We See Things.

Wonderful to see you back Muse! I'm sure I can speak for all the old-timers here in saying we've missed you! (And I assume "missed" is used metaphorically, since we weren't throwing anything at you!)

This subject is related to the famous "Silent green ideas sleep furiously" phrase that Chomsky gave as an example of a grammatically correct but meaningless sentence. Lakoff and others argued, I believe, that language is metaphorical and a sleeping idea is no less meaningful than a ground-breaking proposal.

I thought it was "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously". Back in college, my first linguistics professor said "Those in science and engineering probably won't understand this sentence at all, but those who are more poetic, like the liberal arts majors, will understand stand this a lot more". This almost offended me, not an easy task.

"She recommended the floor to my feet." I love that metaphor, muse!

I like your categories muse ("dead," "stock," and "original"), though I think there is another category. There are metaphors that try to be creative, but just don't work. I can't think of an example right now, but I surely have read some like that.

"Those in science and engineering probably won't understand this sentence at all, but those who are more poetic, like the liberal arts majors, will understand stand this a lot more". This almost offended me, not an easy task.
I can understand your almost taking offense (I like your attitude!), but then in some ways I can see the professor's point. I remember one brilliant classmate of mine in my undergraduate program who was going to graduate school at MIT. He was brilliant in math and science, getting a perfect score on the math section of the exam he took for graduate school. However, his verbal score was below mediocre. I am not saying all math/science majors are like that, but some are. The reverse is sometimes true as well.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
... below mediocre.

Does that mean poor?

Tinman

I would imagine it is a euphemism for poor. Most of the engineers I knew in college thought that a 5 page writing assignment was going to be difficult, because that was a lot to write. I think this was mostly because we weren't used it. I didn't have to write many papers in college, but when I did, I wrote good ones.

Still, the reason I was upset by this was that I was given no chance to defend myself, to show that I could be "poetic". From a metaphorical standpoint, Chomsky's sentence does make some sense. Colorless means it has no color, green means verdant, they are lively ideas. The ideas are in someones head, but they haven't been awaken, meaning they are furiously bumping around in there trying to get the light bulb to go off. That wasn't so hard, although a couple of things are left to explain, for example, how can ideas have colors? However, all that requires is a good imagination, and you don't think math and science can use imagination?

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Originally posted by Seanahan:

all that requires is a good imagination, and you don't think math and science can use imagination?

If math and science didn't use imagination, we wouldn't be flying around in space shuttles!

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If math and science didn't use imagination, we wouldn't be flying around in space shuttles!

Yes, but the people who first got the ideas for space flight were literary types; SF pioneers.

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I like your categories muse ("dead," "stock," and "original"), though I think there is another category. There are metaphors that try to be creative, but just don't work. I can't think of an example right now, but I surely have read some like that.

These are by no means 'my' categories, Kalleh. Peter Newmark, for instance, in his A Textbook of Translation cites six types of metaphor: Dead, cliche, stock, adapted, recent and original. I just find the three I mentioned the most useful ones to present when I'm teaching. Maybe the category you're thinking of is cliche metaphors, which he defines as "metaphors that have outlived their usefulness, that are used as a substitute for clear thought, often emotively, but without corresponding to the facts of the matter."

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how can ideas have colors?

Synesthesia.

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Does that mean poor?

Yes. I just couldn't remember what exam someone going to graduate school in Engineering would take. Would it be the GRE? My recollection is that his verbal score was just horrible, such as a 400 or something.

Yes, we have discussed "synaesthesia" here and here. It is a fascinating concept.

Still, the reason I was upset by this was that I was given no chance to defend myself, to show that I could be "poetic".
I don't blame you at all, Sean. And, as we have learned, you know a whole lot more about linguistics than many English majors do! I was just saying that sometimes those generalizations are true of both science/math and language/poetic people. I so respect those who have a wide range of knowledge, much like my husband...and many on this board.

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Originally posted by arnie:

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If math and science didn't use imagination, we wouldn't be flying around in space shuttles!

Yes, but the people who first got the ideas for space flight were literary types; SF pioneers.

You make a good point!

To go to grad school in engineering, you take the GRE, and they basically ignore the verbal score. The average math score has got to be really high, well above 600. The GRE verbal is a joke, the questions don't test any knowledge other than having memorized the dictionary definitions of things. There were questions where I knew the meaning of every word, and could use everyone of them correctly in a sentence, and still couldn't answer them correctly.

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Yes, but the people who first got the ideas for space flight were literary types; SF pioneers.

Arthur C. Clarke came up with the idea of putting satellites up to aid in communication... . Of course, he, like many other classic SF authors, were scientists.

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how can ideas have colors?

This question made me feel blue, and filled me with black thoughts; then it made me see red! I guess I'm unclear on the concept, maybe it's a grey area. But then some issues are just black and white.

That reply made me turn green with envy! I could talk myself blue in the face before coming up with a colorful answer like that... I'm a yellow coward and I'll just have to stick to my purple prose.

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I'll just have to stick to my purple prose.

OOOOOOHHHHHHH, tell us more!

I have heard language described as metaphor that doesn't seem as such. I may have been talking out loud to myself. As to purple prose, the origin of the term is the Roman poet Horatius:

Inceptis grauibus plerumque et magna professis
purpureus, late qui splendeat, unus et alter
adsuitur pannus, cum lucus et ara Dianae
et properantis aquae per amoenos ambitus agros
aut flumen Rhenum aut pluuius describitur arcus;
sed nunc non erat his locus. Et fortasse cupressum
scis simulare; quid hoc, si fractis enatat exspes
nauibus, aere dato qui pingitur?

"Your opening shows great promise, but has flashy purple patches; as when describing a sacred grove, or the altar of Diana, or a stream meandering through fields, or the river Rhine, or a rainbow. But these are out of place; if you can realistically render a cypress tree, would you include one when commissioned to paint a sailor in the midst of a shipwreck?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_prose

Pannus purpureus means purple rags. The idea being the contrast between the imperial purple, a dye used by the aristocracy, and the tatters collected by ragpickers.

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Originally posted by zmjezhd:
I have heard language described as metaphor that doesn't seem as such.

I've long believed that language is a combination of metaphor and onomatopoeia. What puzzles me most is the development of the abstract, as in the verb, "to be," and its attendant time tenses.

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What puzzles me most is the development of the abstract, as in the verb, "to be," and its attendant time tenses.

Can the verb "to be" have had its origin in other less abstract copular verbs, such as "to become", "to seem", "to have, obtain, get"? Not all languages use the same construction as in English, Subject Copular-Verb Predicative-Adjective (e.g., English "I am hungry"), but in stead Subject Stative-Verb (e.g., Mandarin "wo3 e4 le", literally "I hungry perfective-particle").

Makes sense to me. If I remember right, Russian just says, "I hunger," but I don't remember enough of what little I learned to say for sure.

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I have heard language described as metaphor that doesn't seem as such.

I completely agree. That's why I wanted to add another category to muse's metaphors...those that try to be metaphors (are meant to be by writers), but just don't cut the mustard ( the latter is not meant to be a metaphor! ). The list that muse gives us is "dead, cliche, stock, adapted, recent and original." I think there should be another, named something like "bogus!"

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If I remember right, Russian just says, "I hunger," but I don't remember enough of what little I learned to say for sure.

But, I believe Russian and other Slavonic languages still uses "to be" in the other tenses. How to say "I was hungry"?

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The list that muse gives us is "dead, cliche, stock, adapted, recent and original." I think there should be another, named something like "bogus!"

Sorry for the confusion, Kalleh, but I meant something else which is to the left of "dead" and is something like "seemingly normal language". Your "bogus" I think is to the right of "original".