NON-MENTAL METAPHORS
COPYRIGHT: John Barnden, 2015.
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NON-MENTAL METAPHORS
My mother has (* AN ENTIRE ORCHESTRA *) of her own. [after mention of marching
to a different drum]
[[Speech: source]]
{reawakening and extension of conventional metaphor}
June has give us more weather to forget than remember but (* IT TRIED TO
MAKE AMENDS *) today on its final day ... [mention of hot weather].
[[Speech: source]]
{personification; negative value judgment}
You get this (* DANCE OR MATING RITUAL,*) where things [small
astronomical bodies] hit, splash off each other, and re-accrete[.]
[[Text: source]]
I saw (* A CHEEKY GRIN IN HIS EYE,*) ...
[[Speech: source]]
{Possibly using metaphor of eye expression as mouth expression. But
another analysis could, tentatively, be: there is a transferred epithet, with the
presence of the grin as the epithet, qualifying the eye; the cheeky
grin in reality qualifies the mouth expression going along with the
eye expression.}
The Prime Minister's wife [supplies] (* A FABRIC SOFTENER FOR HIS STARCHY IMAGE.*)
[[Text:
source]]
No man is an island, and nowadays (* NO ISLAND IS EITHER.*) Insects, bacteria
and fungi hitch a ride from country to country with travellers and
cargoes.
[[Text:
source]]
Viking Ocean Cruises sponsors Great Moments on ITV Afternoons - where (*
GREAT MOMENTS JUST KEEP FLOWING.*)
(speech in advertisement on TV channel ITV3 in UK in 2014}
{unusual metaphor for time, though within the framework of times as
moving physical objects}
Jayne is our Ben Fogel.
[[Text:
source]]
but it seemed that (* HE DID NOT MOVE THROUGH TIME AT ALL, THAT
RATHER TIME MOVED WITH HIM, AN INVISIBLE CLOUD THAT HOVERED ABOUT HIM
AND CLUNG TO HIM *) as he went forward.
[[Text:
source, p.96]]
{loss of normal time-flow sense; and see next item}
(* THE DAYS SLID ONE INTO ANOTHER,*) marked by evening exhaustion and
morning soreness; ... (* TIME again seemed to Andrews to HOLD ITSELF APART
FROM THE PASSING OF THE DAYS.*)
[[Text:
source, p.180]]
{loss of normal time-flow sense; and see previous and next items}
Week by week, and at last month by month, the men endured the changing
weather. ... (* DAY SLIPPED INTO INDISTINGUISHABLE DAY, and week into
week; Andrews had no sensation of passing time,*..) nothing against
which to measure the coming thaw of spring. Every now and then he looked
at the notches in a stripped pine branch that Schneider had made to keep
track of the days; dully, mechanically, he counted them, but the number
had no meaning for him. He was made aware of the passing of the months
by the fact that at regular intervals Schneider came up to him and asked
him for his month's pay. At such times, he solemnly counted from his
money belt the money Schneider demanded, wondering vaguely where he kept
it after he got it. (..* But even this gave him no consciousness of
passing time;*..) it was a duty he performed when Schneider asked him;
(..* it had nothing to do with the time that did not pass, but which
HELD HIM UNMOVING where he was.*)
[[Text:
source, p.239/240]]
{loss of normal time-flow sense; and see previous two items, incl. resonance with the sliding
days in the item from p.180}
(* The great plain SWAYED BENEATH THEM *) as they went steadily westward.
[[Text:
source, p.86]]
{A special sort of appearance-resemblance metaphor? See also the next entry.}
The horse beneath took him from hollow to crest, yet it seemed to him
that (* the land rather than the horse MOVED BENEATH HIM LIKE A GREAT
TREADMILL, REVEALING IN ITS MOVEMENT ONLY ANOTHER PART OF ITSELF.*)
[[Text:
source, p.87]]
{A special sort of appearance-resemblance metaphor? See also the
previous entry.}
In the evening after the sun had gone down, (* the grass *..) took on a purplish
hue as if it (..* ABSORBED ALL THE LIGHT FROM THE SKY *) and (* WOULD NOT GIVE IT
BACK.*)
[[Text:
source, p.86]]
{First segment: light as liquid. Second segment: personification
(assuming that "would not" is in the sense of "refused to")}
[T]he country ... rolled out gently before them, and they traveled from
soft hollow to soft rise, as if (* they were TINY CHIPS BLOWN UPON THE
FROZEN SURFACE OF A GREAT SEA.*)
[[Text:
source, p.86]]
{Appearance-resemblance metaphor. (I also just wonder whether "chips" is a
type for "ships".)}
During the first few days of the journey (* he had been so TORN with the
raw agony of movement *..) that (..* each forward step his mount took CUT ITSELF
UPON HIS NERVES AND UPON HIS MIND.*)
[[Text:
source, p.86]]
{Pain (and possibly movement) as physical object tearing/cutting the body; and in the "mind"
segment it's mixed with MIND AS PHYSICAL OBJECT. There may be a metonymy
from the forward step to pain caused by it.}
Day by day (* the numbness CREPT UPON HIM *) until at last (* the
numbness seemed TO BE HIMSELF.*) He felt (* himself TO BE LIKE THE LAND,
WITHOUT IDENTITY OR SHAPE; sometimes one of the men would look at him,
LOOK THROUGH HIM, AS IF HE DID NOT EXIST;*) and he had to shake his head
sharply and move an arm or a leg and glance at it to assure himself that
he was visible.
[[Text:
source, p.87]]
{First segment: physical sensation as animate being.
Second segment:
could be a metaphor equating a person with a physical sensation, but
could also be hyperbole of the extent of overall sensation taken up by
the numbness.
Remaining segments: person as absorbed into surrounding land: very
novel metaphor?}
That's what BIRMS (* THINKS *) is the case anyway.
[[Speech: source]]
{personification metaphor, attributing a belief to a computer
student-management system, BIRMS}
He (* explores THE BOTTOM OF *) the regulations.
[[Speech: source]]
{regulations as physical structure, lower parts of which are about
weaker students}
[the gene] acts as a kind of (* SITE MANAGER *)
[[Speech: source]]
[it is more like] (* GOING TO MARKET *) and (* COMING BACK WITH A WHEELBARROW
FULL OF CASH *)
[[Speech: source]]
{open ended elaboration of a familiar market metaphor}
My so-called personality had always been a (* COSTUME I put on
fumblingly, and removed with vague, perplexed fingers;*) it (* SHIFTED
*) depending on circumstances, like (* UNFASTENED CARGO in the hold of a
ship.*) ... [NP] The personalities I (* ASSEMBLED *) never lasted
long. Like (* QUILTS carelessly sewn together, I periodically fell
apart.*)
[[Text:
source, p.129]]
{Mixing of PERSOANLITY AS COSTUME view with the CARGO metaphor. Serial or parallel?}
...; fluorescent tubing hummed and quivered overhead like (* RACING THOUGHTS.*)
[[Text:
source, p.104]]
{unusual case: non-mental OBJECTS AS THOUGHTS}
{NB: mixing of that metaphorical view with (conventional) metaphor of
thoughts as racing. Serial or parallel?}
If (* YOU'RE *) important enough to have acquired five satellites, (*
YOU'RE *) a planet[.]
[[Text: source]]
{OBJECT AS PERSON identified by impersonal "you"}
Or are the ["Now" music collections] just (* BUBBLEGUM FOR THE EARS *) of lazy music consumers?
[[Speech: source]]
There was no cosiness in the breakfast-room. The lights were not shaded,
... and their (* COLD BLAZE PRESENTED AN ATMOSPHERE OF HYGIENIC CHILL *)
which even the bright fire could not dispel.
[[Text: p.96]]
{NB: mixing of cold with blazing, and of light being cold with "atmosphere" being cold}
[a (* problem *) about the regulation of banking in Europe] seems to have been
(* KICKED RIGHT OVER THE LONG GRASS INTO THE JUNKYARD DOWN THE ROAD[.]*)
[[Speech: source]]
{creative elaboration of the conventional metaphor about kicking a
problem into the long grass}
[The Dean] Mr. Deighton-Clerk's (* GAZE WENT SLOWLY UP TO THE CEILING *)
[where there were depictions of the twelve signs of the zodiac], as if
(* SEEKING COMFORT IN HIS OWN PRIVATE ASTROLOGICAL HEAVEN.*) Comfort came to
him in some measure as (* HIS EYE MOVED FROM __Cancer__ TO THE TAUT FORM OF
__Sagittarius__.*) ... At this moment (* THE DEAN'S EYE, VOYAGING STILL
AMONG HIS RAFTERS, RESTED ON __Aquarius__,*) ...
[[Text: source p.39]]
{Grammar in first sentence is somewhat awry. It seems author means the
Dean is seeking comfort, not the gaze.}
{Personification of the eye mixed with the ceiling as heaven.}
(* THE ROAD TO DOWNING STREET RUNS THROUGH CORBY.*)
[[Speech: source]]
{Metaphorical road standaing for the time course of political fortunes,
but appealing to real-world point that places are connected by
roads. Also a metonymy on Downing Street, to refer to being the party in
power in the UK.}
We do not have a (* CHOCOLATE ARMY [that] FADES AWAY *) at the first sign
of trouble.
[[Speech: source]]
{cf. chocolate teapots. NB: chocolate usually melts, not "fades", so
there could be serial mixing, with melting being metaphorical viewed as
fading? Or: parallel mixing with army simultaneously viewed as meltable
and as fading?}
But on 1st October 2009, they moved across Parliament Square, (* TAKING
THEIR POWERS WITH THEM,*) to become the first Supreme Court justices
[[Text source]]
I'll try to (* LOOP IT UP.*)
[[Speech: source]]
{"It" refers to final phase of an academic lecture.}
From today, the entire (* POLAR ICE-CAP *..) of Catholic sexual morality has
started to (..* MELT).
[[Speech: source]]
The topic of the day was police brutality, but the jammed
auditorium (* RANG WITH WIDER FRUSTRATIONS.*)
[[Text: source]]
{Mixing of metonymy from frustrations to utterances and metaphor of
utterances constituting a ringing noise (?) .}
This is a crystal-clear example of what could be called corporate
debasement of the academy and its role.
[NP]
(* IT IS NOT JUST THE TAIL
BUT THE DIRTY TIP OF THE TAIL WAGGING THE DOG.*) I'm certain most
academics will treat this with the contempt it deserves.
[[Text:
source]]
And although Hanks can be pleasant company and is highly talented, there
is an (* UNDERBELLY TO HIS PAST.*)
[[Text:
source]]
{Probably metonymy from PAST to his life at that time, plus some
metaphor relating to an animal.}
... I was entrusted with the road map, which (* looked like THE PLAN FOR
THE INTESTINES OF A GIANT INSECT,*)
[[Text:
source p.172]]
{NB: interesting simile in that the source is obscure and
counterfactual:
(a) we probably don't have a clear idea of what the intestines of an
insect are like; (b) it's unlear why an *insect* is appealed to at all,
rather than a person; (c) the giantness has unclear significance; (d)
intestines wouldn't have a plan anyway. The insectness may have an
evaluative effect (disgust, horror).}
But (* I could see in my mind's eye *) the placid winding streets (ways,
lanes, drives) of Fernwood (* LEADING BACK FARTHER AND FARTHER INTO THE
DIMNESS OF THE PAST *) I had already spent there, ...
[[Text:
source p.172]]
{TIME AS LANDSCAPE, but in this case a real landscape he is receding
from. Moreover, the landscape is the one he's seeing in his mind's eye. }
... the woman I called "Nada" ... was just (* A LIAR. SHE CHEATED all
the time.*)
[[Text:
source p.214]]
{She's a liar in that, because of her writing, previously unknown to the
narrator, it's as if she had pretended to be someone she wasn't.}
We are accustomed to people (* EXISTING IN ORBIT AROUND US,*..) and we
dread thinking of their deaths because of (..* THE SLIGHT TUG WE WILL
FEEL WHEN THEIR PRESENCE IS GONE---WE'LL BE DRAWN OUT CLOSER TO THE
FRIGIDITY OF DARKNESS, SPACE, death.*..) We are accustomed to (..* THESE
SMALLER PLANETS ALWAYS SHOWING THE SAME SIDES TO US,*) familiar,
predictable, secure, sound, sane, accommodating, but ...
[[Text:
source p.215]]
Croisset in winter: thick fog, perfect silence, (* PERFECT
EMPTINESS.*..) The (..* RICH NOTHINGNESS *) of the scene of writing is
often ritually invoked in Flaubert's letters. `(* IT'S LIKE BEING INSIDE
AN ENORMOUS MILK-WHITE TOMB,*)' he said.
[[Text:
source p.xvii]]
A church clock struck once, slowly, (* LIKE A VOICE CALLING OUT TO HIM.*)
[[Text:
source p.56]]
To bring this about he would have to (* CONQUER Fate;*) ...
[[Text:
source p.77]]
That was (* A STORM IN AN EGGCUP *..) -- it didn't even make (..* THE SIZE OF A TEACUP.*)
[[Speech: source]]
{Allusion to idiom "storm in a teacup", further exaggerating the size contrast.}
Let me put that differently. It isn't that I don't like cricket, it's
that (* CRICKET DOESN'T LIKE ME.*)
[[Text: source]]
{INANIMATE ENTITY AS PERSON}
And I was the wrong religion to field. A cricket ball coming at you at a
hundred miles an hour is (* like AN EXOCET.*) In my faith it is forbidden to
knowingly (* put yourself IN THE LINE OF FIRE.*)[NP]
[[Text: source]]
{Physical simile as part of discourse-extended metaphor, conforming to
SPORT AS WAR.}
(* Yesterday WAS CHRISTMAS DAY *) for all the editors of tabloid
newspapers.
{Alluding to especially interesting political events.}
[[Speech: BBC Radio 4, "Today" programme, 4 November 2005]]
{copular metaphor with semantically very close target and source}
Dame Patricia Hodgson ... will ... lambast micromanagement and (*
CREEPING *..) bureaucracy [in universities] which she estimates is costing £250m a year.
[NP]
She will accuse the funding council Hefce and similar bodies in
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland of diverting precious resources by
trying to micromanage universities.
[NP] ...
"I've been appalled ... by the sector's apparent acceptance of (..* CREEPING *)
intervention; and by its capacity to respond to red tape (* in spades.*)"
[[Text: source]]
{ABSTRACT DEVELOPMENT AS ANIMATE BEING}
Dame Patricia ... says that universities are
responding to interference from Hefce by (*"GOLD-PLATING"*) their response.
[NP]
"... I've
been appalled ... by the sector's apparent acceptance of (* creeping *)
intervention; and by its capacity to respond to red tape (* in spades.*)
[NP]
In other words, to (* GOLD-PLATE *) its response to bureaucracy and
centralisation," she will say.
[[Text: source]]
{QUALITY AS RICHNESS}
{NB: metaphoricity signal "in other words". But the quote marks round
the first use of "gold-plating" could be just for quotation, rather than
metaphoricity signalling.}
Will Plymouth [in Monserrat, after destruction by a volcanic eruption]
(* RISE PHOENIX-LIKE *) from the fire? ...
Did the (* RUMBLINGS [before the destruction] REACH YOU *) in America?
{"rumblings" not meant literally in the context; refers to psychological/social
effects}
[[Speech: source]]
{First sentence: INANIMATE PHYSICAL OBJECT AS ANIMATE BEING with
BUILDING ACTIVITY AS VERTICAL MOVEMENT.
The weather had suddenly warmed and was threatening rain, and we
flew between colossal black thunderheads lighting up (* WITH VIOLENT
THOUGHTS.*) The storm loudly cracked and flashed as we sped through (* WHAT
SEEMED THE MIDDLE OF A FEUD.*)
[[Text: source p.323]]
{STORM AS BATTLING/THOUGHTS}
These guys don't just defeat opponents they (* DESTROY
THEM PIECE BY BLOODY PIECE[.]*)
[[Text: source]]
{SPORTS DEFEAT AS BODY DISTINTEGRATION}
{perhaps reanalyzable as hyperbole}
Here's (* LICHTENSTEIN AS MAGRITTE *)
[[Speech: source]]
{explicit X AS ANOTHER X metaphorical view}
[The weather is] (* SETTLING INTO a drier FRAME OF MIND[.]*)
[[Speech: source]]
{WEATHER AS PERSON mixed with MENTAL PROCESS AS PHYSICAL MOVEMENT}
(* I DON'T KNOW HOW WE WOULD HAVE EXTRICATED OURSELVES FROM THE
ESCALATING INSULTS *) if we hadn't been interrupted by the buzzer
outside my front door.
[[Text: source p.226]]
{UTTERANCE AS EXTERNAL PHYSICAL OBJECT}
... (* THE FURNITURE, OVER-AWED BY THE BED, WAS DIFFIDENT *) and shabby.
[[Text: source p.263]]
{PERSONIFICATION}
Like Barbara, most of us appreciate gifts that (* SAY *) "it took time and
thought to find me."
[[Text: source]]
If a good gift (* SAYS *) "Thank you for being you," a bad one practically
(* SINGS OUT *) "I don't love you just the way you are." According to Dr.
Berger, "These gifts are often perceived as (* SAYING *) 'with my help you
can improve.'"
[[Text: source]]
Some gifts are so obviously bad-intentioned that the message is hardly
hidden at all. As psychotherapist Linda Barbanel points out, "Gifts
can convey: `I'm mad as hell at you.' That's tough to say out loud,
so the message is delivered instead through a hostile gift."
[[Text: source]]
{MENTAL? (Indexed also in Miscellaneous Mental Metaphors.)}
Dr. Piaget notes that "Some gifts (* SAY *) `I don't think you're worth a lot.'
They're so cheap that they're like leaving a one-cent tip for a waitress."
[[Text: source]]
{MENTAL? (Indexed also in Miscellaneous Mental Metaphors.)}
If only it was possible to turn the clock back, and return to that time when we
were simply seeing each other. ... The (* FUTURE HADN'T APPARENTLY BEEN
HURTLING TOWARDS US *) then.
[NP] (* `I should never have got engaged,' I groaned inwardly;*) that was
when the (* BRAKES HAD BEEN RELEASED.*) Oh, I had wanted to get engaged, but
just that, and no more.
[[Text: source]]
{NB: discourse coherence between the two metaphorical bits.}
"He's not (* DEAD MEAT,*)" says one GOP consultant. "He's just (* LIGHTLY
BROILED.*)"
[[Text: source]]
{note coherence: dead/broiled}
[President Milosovich]
(* PULL[ED] THE RUG --- OR WHAT'S LEFT OF THE RUG *) ---
from under the feet of the Bosnian Serbs.
[Speech: presenter on World At One, BBC Radio 4, U.K., 7jun95]
{NB: enlivening of an idiom or dead metaphor}