"Writing about metaphor is dancing with your conceptual clothes off, the innards of your language exposed by equipment more powerful than anything operated by the TSA. Still, one would be a rabbit not to do it in a world where metaphor is now top dog, at least among revived rhetorical devices with philosophical appeal." [What's a Metaphor For?]
posted by vidur on Jul 12, 2011 - 20 comments

Aphorisms: "A minimum of sound to a maximum of sense." [ram] Journalist, gnomologist and author James Geary has just released Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists [Amazon. recent NPR interview here]. It draws from such aphorists as Shakespeare, Voltaire, Emerson, Shaw, Mae West, Woody Allen and Steven Wright. Also discussed is chiasmus, the Jefferson Bible and some meta. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in your reading have been like the blast of triumph..." [more inside]
posted by McLir on Oct 2, 2007 - 16 comments