A Metaphor is a Kind of Pump
June 11, 2015 7:18 AM Subscribe
Michael Erard, in Aeon: "To design metaphors, it helps to have a metaphor for metaphor. I think of it as a room: the windows and doors frame a view toward the reality outside. Put the windows high, people see only the trees. Put them low, they see the grass. Put the window on the south side, they’ll see the sun. Sometimes the room can be empty. Sometimes the views from the room are a bit forced. Or perhaps they’re new and therefore uncomfortable. In those situations, you have to direct people’s attention. You have to give them furniture to sit on that makes your architectural choices unavoidable."
Nice. I enjoyed this, thanks.
Dennis Schmitz gave an interview with Mary Zeppa some years ago for the Sacramento Poetry Center in which he presents ten "poetry assumptions" that deepened my understanding of what makes a good metaphor. I kept the list in a text file, but sadly can't find a link to the original interview in which he provides some context.
1) The practice of poetry is to talk about one thing in terms of another.
2) The literal/figurative connection: A thing must be itself before it can be something else.
3) Internal consistency: To stay in Wonderland, you have to live by the Queen's rules.
4) Dressing (ordering the argument): First the pants, then the shoes.
5) Extending the metaphor: Take literally the implications of the metaphoric statement.
6) Description: Be accurate and the details will reveal the second, metaphoric world.
7) Every utterance is about the speaker.
8) A title is the sign for where you are going.
9) The purpose of discourse (writing) is to make context.
10) Pattern: Subordination is the counterpart of the argument.
posted by echocollate at 8:12 AM on June 11, 2015 [19 favorites]
Dennis Schmitz gave an interview with Mary Zeppa some years ago for the Sacramento Poetry Center in which he presents ten "poetry assumptions" that deepened my understanding of what makes a good metaphor. I kept the list in a text file, but sadly can't find a link to the original interview in which he provides some context.
1) The practice of poetry is to talk about one thing in terms of another.
2) The literal/figurative connection: A thing must be itself before it can be something else.
3) Internal consistency: To stay in Wonderland, you have to live by the Queen's rules.
4) Dressing (ordering the argument): First the pants, then the shoes.
5) Extending the metaphor: Take literally the implications of the metaphoric statement.
6) Description: Be accurate and the details will reveal the second, metaphoric world.
7) Every utterance is about the speaker.
8) A title is the sign for where you are going.
9) The purpose of discourse (writing) is to make context.
10) Pattern: Subordination is the counterpart of the argument.
posted by echocollate at 8:12 AM on June 11, 2015 [19 favorites]
Dan Dennett coined the phrase "intuition pump," for a metaphor that is crafted to induce sympathy to a theoretical argument.
IANAL but I think Lakoff has become kind of extreme / cartoonish. Insisting that everything is a metaphor just amounts to destroying an otherwise useful category; if everything's a metaphor, nothing's a metaphor. But the analysis of semantics in terms of many different domains mapped onto spatial relation schemas has been very productive. I believe this originated with Jeffrey Gruber's Ph.D. thesis. See generally.
posted by grobstein at 8:15 AM on June 11, 2015 [3 favorites]
IANAL but I think Lakoff has become kind of extreme / cartoonish. Insisting that everything is a metaphor just amounts to destroying an otherwise useful category; if everything's a metaphor, nothing's a metaphor. But the analysis of semantics in terms of many different domains mapped onto spatial relation schemas has been very productive. I believe this originated with Jeffrey Gruber's Ph.D. thesis. See generally.
posted by grobstein at 8:15 AM on June 11, 2015 [3 favorites]
Gilding lilies as a means of herding cats...
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 8:31 AM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 8:31 AM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
The room metaphor is actually a conceit that resolves in a wonderful way: "Maybe the best metaphor needs no furniture."
A tricky thing about metaphors is that they are dependent on the audience's mind-world and it's really hard to suss out what's in there. Teachers have to do this too, as they probe to find out where the students' minds are at, then help them ladder up to the new understanding -- usually with metaphors.
I have a friend who works in advertising. He left California for Australia 15 years ago. He was frustrated with his career, so when he left America, he left advertising, too, and did odd jobs, and taught, and a few other things. He's back in advertising -- in Australia -- and I'll have to ask him about that sabbatical. Along with repairing his psyche, I suppose it allowed him to steep in Oz and get familiar with the local mind-worlds and the shared understandings, which is probably critical for advertising creatives designing metaphors.
posted by notyou at 8:37 AM on June 11, 2015 [2 favorites]
A tricky thing about metaphors is that they are dependent on the audience's mind-world and it's really hard to suss out what's in there. Teachers have to do this too, as they probe to find out where the students' minds are at, then help them ladder up to the new understanding -- usually with metaphors.
I have a friend who works in advertising. He left California for Australia 15 years ago. He was frustrated with his career, so when he left America, he left advertising, too, and did odd jobs, and taught, and a few other things. He's back in advertising -- in Australia -- and I'll have to ask him about that sabbatical. Along with repairing his psyche, I suppose it allowed him to steep in Oz and get familiar with the local mind-worlds and the shared understandings, which is probably critical for advertising creatives designing metaphors.
posted by notyou at 8:37 AM on June 11, 2015 [2 favorites]
META-METAPHORFILTER AMIRITE OR AM I JUST WRITING IN CAPS
posted by lalochezia at 8:51 AM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by lalochezia at 8:51 AM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
Software Development is reliant on metaphors. We have "objects," "trees," "strings," "containers," "collections," and on and on. This is both useful and horrible—metaphors are always "leaky," so people who can step outside the metaphors are always less capable than people who can't. When people first run into something that cannot be made into a complete metaphor, it is usually like running face-first into a wall. (Monads are the current gold standard for this, I believe.)
posted by sonic meat machine at 9:02 AM on June 11, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by sonic meat machine at 9:02 AM on June 11, 2015 [3 favorites]
I want to become a metaphor designer! Where do I sign up?!
posted by ipsative at 9:05 AM on June 11, 2015
posted by ipsative at 9:05 AM on June 11, 2015
"people who can step outside the metaphors are always less capable than people who can't"
/me runs that metaphor through the comparison inversion functor
posted by idiopath at 9:08 AM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
/me runs that metaphor through the comparison inversion functor
posted by idiopath at 9:08 AM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
I want to become a metaphor designer! Where do I sign up?!
Well, for a mere $600k in non-dischargeable student debt, you can enroll in the new Master of Metaphors program at my for-profit degree mill. Our graduates have gone on to great careers in such fields as ultra-conservative small-scale wealth management, long-term outdoorsmanship, and extreme dieting research.
posted by Behemoth at 9:11 AM on June 11, 2015 [2 favorites]
Well, for a mere $600k in non-dischargeable student debt, you can enroll in the new Master of Metaphors program at my for-profit degree mill. Our graduates have gone on to great careers in such fields as ultra-conservative small-scale wealth management, long-term outdoorsmanship, and extreme dieting research.
posted by Behemoth at 9:11 AM on June 11, 2015 [2 favorites]
Metaphor as comparison and metaphor as categorization are two forms of processing that the Career of Metaphor Theory is actually trying to unify, and not really "competing theories". Gentner and Bowdle themselves have argued that different degrees of metaphoricity (from conventional to novel) imply different forms of processing. Conventional metaphors are more frequently processed as categories than are novel ones. They also offer psycholinguistic evidence for those assertiones.
IANAL but I think Lakoff has become kind of extreme / cartoonish. Insisting that everything is a metaphor just amounts to destroying an otherwise useful category; if everything's a metaphor, nothing's a metaphor.
This is true. Lakoff & Johnson have an awesome framework to start thinking about conventional metaphors present in daily life (the ones we Live By), and anyone starting their.. uh.. journey into metaphor studies should start reading Metaphors we Live By. But have little to say about the dynamics of metaphor (creation, processing, implications for language change), and many other things that have turned out to be quite relevant, interesting questions about metaphors, analogies, metonymies and categorizations.
posted by ipsative at 9:18 AM on June 11, 2015 [2 favorites]
IANAL but I think Lakoff has become kind of extreme / cartoonish. Insisting that everything is a metaphor just amounts to destroying an otherwise useful category; if everything's a metaphor, nothing's a metaphor.
This is true. Lakoff & Johnson have an awesome framework to start thinking about conventional metaphors present in daily life (the ones we Live By), and anyone starting their.. uh.. journey into metaphor studies should start reading Metaphors we Live By. But have little to say about the dynamics of metaphor (creation, processing, implications for language change), and many other things that have turned out to be quite relevant, interesting questions about metaphors, analogies, metonymies and categorizations.
posted by ipsative at 9:18 AM on June 11, 2015 [2 favorites]
Well, for a mere $600k in non-dischargeable student debt, you can enroll in the new Master of Metaphors program at my for-profit degree mill.
Also, the VU Amsterdam's Metaphor Lab has a pretty good Master of Metaphors, for way less money.
When I'm done here (soon!) I'll be crowned Dr. of Metaphors, so I was actually hoping to get tips for jobs... ^^ *whistles*
posted by ipsative at 9:26 AM on June 11, 2015 [3 favorites]
Also, the VU Amsterdam's Metaphor Lab has a pretty good Master of Metaphors, for way less money.
When I'm done here (soon!) I'll be crowned Dr. of Metaphors, so I was actually hoping to get tips for jobs... ^^ *whistles*
posted by ipsative at 9:26 AM on June 11, 2015 [3 favorites]
(Just a clarification, by "here" I don't mean the VU.)
posted by ipsative at 9:27 AM on June 11, 2015
posted by ipsative at 9:27 AM on June 11, 2015
IANAL but I think Lakoff has become kind of extreme / cartoonish. Insisting that everything is a metaphor just amounts to destroying an otherwise useful category; if everything's a metaphor, nothing's a metaphor.
Actually I have the exact opposite complaint about Lakoff and the work (like this article) he's inspired — that it has an oversimplified, mechanistic conception of metaphor and how it works, and so doesn't really follow through on this premise as well as many better philosophers of language have done. If all language is in some sense dead metaphor, which is not exactly a new idea with Lakoff (by centuries!), then what really ought to be interesting is to think about degrees of deadness or life, conventionality or novelty, breadth or specificity. Lakoff instead seems to think, in practice if not in theory, that the only "metaphors" worthy of the name are these giant-scale, clunkily universalized conceptual schemata, all too generalized into detachment from any specific language use.
posted by RogerB at 9:30 AM on June 11, 2015 [2 favorites]
Actually I have the exact opposite complaint about Lakoff and the work (like this article) he's inspired — that it has an oversimplified, mechanistic conception of metaphor and how it works, and so doesn't really follow through on this premise as well as many better philosophers of language have done. If all language is in some sense dead metaphor, which is not exactly a new idea with Lakoff (by centuries!), then what really ought to be interesting is to think about degrees of deadness or life, conventionality or novelty, breadth or specificity. Lakoff instead seems to think, in practice if not in theory, that the only "metaphors" worthy of the name are these giant-scale, clunkily universalized conceptual schemata, all too generalized into detachment from any specific language use.
posted by RogerB at 9:30 AM on June 11, 2015 [2 favorites]
Insisting that everything is a metaphor just amounts to destroying an otherwise useful category; if everything's a metaphor, nothing's a metaphor.
or, as I discovered roundabout my 17th acid trip, this is actually true. Metaphors aren't some kind of abstraction, they're "reality itself" creeping through all the filters and distortions of perception. Books actually are mirrors to the soul, all the world is a stage and we are merely players, there is a great and cosmic tree and all religions, arts and sciences are its branches, chaos really is Bob Dylan's friend.
And then I came down.
posted by philip-random at 9:32 AM on June 11, 2015 [3 favorites]
or, as I discovered roundabout my 17th acid trip, this is actually true. Metaphors aren't some kind of abstraction, they're "reality itself" creeping through all the filters and distortions of perception. Books actually are mirrors to the soul, all the world is a stage and we are merely players, there is a great and cosmic tree and all religions, arts and sciences are its branches, chaos really is Bob Dylan's friend.
And then I came down.
posted by philip-random at 9:32 AM on June 11, 2015 [3 favorites]
ipsative: "Also, the VU Amsterdam's Metaphor Lab has a pretty good Master of Metaphors, for way less money."
Tbh, Master of Metaphors is a pretty rad title.
meanwhile, here I am with just a Major in Metonymy and a Minor in Synecdoche
posted by mhum at 9:33 AM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
Tbh, Master of Metaphors is a pretty rad title.
meanwhile, here I am with just a Major in Metonymy and a Minor in Synecdoche
posted by mhum at 9:33 AM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
Can we just get back to real down to earth regular dick and jane doing something quite straightforward and literal with 'the cigar', none of this obscure what does the meaning of the cigar not being a cigar representing a symbolic relation that is so obscure that no one knows if you're making a point about the meaning of the relation or a point about making points. Get the point?
posted by sammyo at 9:48 AM on June 11, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by sammyo at 9:48 AM on June 11, 2015 [2 favorites]
Actually I have the exact opposite complaint about Lakoff and the work (like this article) he's inspired — that it has an oversimplified, mechanistic conception of metaphor and how it works, and so doesn't really follow through on this premise as well as many better philosophers of language have done. If all language is in some sense dead metaphor, which is not exactly a new idea with Lakoff (by centuries!), then what really ought to be interesting is to think about degrees of deadness or life, conventionality or novelty, breadth or specificity. Lakoff instead seems to think, in practice if not in theory, that the only "metaphors" worthy of the name are these giant-scale, clunkily universalized conceptual schemata, all too generalized into detachment from any specific language use.
This article does address that, though. It talks about what sorts of conceptual ("you need a metaphor for metaphors") and contextual (the cultural values of daffodil vs. orchid) elements (in usage) make a novel metaphor more or less successful in language.
But critique of Lakoff et. al. tends to be so black or white that I feel compelled to play devil's advocate whenever I hear it. Sure he's outdated. The book is from 1980! So I think it's unfair to ask of it that it should answer all our questions in 2015. There's still a lot to say that's not in those books, sure.
posted by ipsative at 9:56 AM on June 11, 2015 [2 favorites]
This article does address that, though. It talks about what sorts of conceptual ("you need a metaphor for metaphors") and contextual (the cultural values of daffodil vs. orchid) elements (in usage) make a novel metaphor more or less successful in language.
But critique of Lakoff et. al. tends to be so black or white that I feel compelled to play devil's advocate whenever I hear it. Sure he's outdated. The book is from 1980! So I think it's unfair to ask of it that it should answer all our questions in 2015. There's still a lot to say that's not in those books, sure.
posted by ipsative at 9:56 AM on June 11, 2015 [2 favorites]
conventionality or novelty, breadth or specificity
posted by mittens at 10:03 AM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
...society's not knowing is colossal,--Marianne Moore
the lion's ferocious chrysanthemum head seeming kind by comparison.
posted by mittens at 10:03 AM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
Say there’s a city department that’s in charge of lots of different programmes, all of them related to health. The department plays a centralising function for various programmes funded by multiple sources, operating over several jurisdictions. That diversity confuses audiences. Also, the programmes are often for vulnerable populations – the elderly, immigrants, people with addictions: people for whom the average taxpayer’s sympathies are not necessarily assured. So the right metaphor must speak to inclusion and community, and suggest some benefit, such as health or opportunity, that’s more widely shared.
I work on the Board at a Community Health Centre so when I read this, I perked up. We've been looking for a powerful metaphor for what our Centre does for quite some time. But then...
I tried ‘bridge’ and ‘platform’, but ultimately went with ‘key ring’: the department holds the keys for unlocking health.
A key ring? The thing in your pocket that no one ever thinks about.... ?
posted by storybored at 10:18 AM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
I work on the Board at a Community Health Centre so when I read this, I perked up. We've been looking for a powerful metaphor for what our Centre does for quite some time. But then...
I tried ‘bridge’ and ‘platform’, but ultimately went with ‘key ring’: the department holds the keys for unlocking health.
A key ring? The thing in your pocket that no one ever thinks about.... ?
posted by storybored at 10:18 AM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
Are there any other books, post-Lakoff, about metaphors that are worth reading? (I read it college and really enjoyed it, particularly with its emphasis on the physical body and its role in metaphor/understanding).
posted by typecloud at 10:42 AM on June 11, 2015
posted by typecloud at 10:42 AM on June 11, 2015
Yes there are! I really loved Vyvyan Evans' The Language Myth. Though, like his textbook, it encompasses more than just metaphor, and it was written as popular science, it is a great response to criticism of cognitive linguistics as a cultural tool, constrained by our bodies' abilities and experiences. It's also very recent (it came out in 2014),
If you want a focus on metaphors and metonymy, there's Metaphors Dead and Alive, Sleeping and Waking by Cornelia Müller (which can get a bit technical sometimes, but if you finished Lakoff & Johnson's book, you'll be able to manage this too).
Also, "Part II: Cognitive Semantics" of Evans & Green's textbook Cognitive Linguistics. An Introduction is an awesome summary of post-Lakoff developments in the camp of metaphors, but also cognitive semantics in general (with its emphasis on the physical body, etc).
posted by ipsative at 11:05 AM on June 11, 2015 [10 favorites]
If you want a focus on metaphors and metonymy, there's Metaphors Dead and Alive, Sleeping and Waking by Cornelia Müller (which can get a bit technical sometimes, but if you finished Lakoff & Johnson's book, you'll be able to manage this too).
Also, "Part II: Cognitive Semantics" of Evans & Green's textbook Cognitive Linguistics. An Introduction is an awesome summary of post-Lakoff developments in the camp of metaphors, but also cognitive semantics in general (with its emphasis on the physical body, etc).
posted by ipsative at 11:05 AM on June 11, 2015 [10 favorites]
When we talk about new site features as "ponies", we are using MetaFilterMetaphors.
When we make euphemisms for constipation, we are using MetamucilMetaphors.
And when the NSA or Facebook make excuses for their massive data collection, they are using MetadataMetaphors.
And when I make reference to a Will Rogers quote, I am using NeverMetAManMetaphors.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:11 PM on June 11, 2015
When we make euphemisms for constipation, we are using MetamucilMetaphors.
And when the NSA or Facebook make excuses for their massive data collection, they are using MetadataMetaphors.
And when I make reference to a Will Rogers quote, I am using NeverMetAManMetaphors.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:11 PM on June 11, 2015
/me runs that metaphor through the comparison inversion functor
Yes, I had a braino.
posted by sonic meat machine at 2:46 PM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yes, I had a braino.
posted by sonic meat machine at 2:46 PM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
To design metaphors, it helps to have a metaphor for metaphor.
Which is technically known as a pataphor.
posted by acb at 6:13 PM on June 11, 2015 [2 favorites]
Which is technically known as a pataphor.
posted by acb at 6:13 PM on June 11, 2015 [2 favorites]
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"What's a metaphor? It's like a simile."
posted by Xavier Xavier at 7:39 AM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]