MetaFilter posts tagged with metaphor

It's a jungle in there

Twang — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 00:56:56 -0800

It's the hottest new metaphor for the brain, they say. Your brain is a rain forest. The human brain is not a machine; it is a biological organism. It is not hardware or software. It is wetware. And it is messy. Millions of years of evolution have created hundreds of billions of brain cells organized and connected in unbelievably complex systems of organicity. The body of a neuron, or brain cell, looks like an exotic tropical tree with numerous branches. To do a little re-Branding: If we are as jungles we might as well get good at it? (Optional soundtracks: You Are Listening To) (Big Picture Science discussion with author James Geary ... about 39 minutes in)

Metaphor Dogs

ZenMasterThis — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 16:27:43 -0800

The Canine in Converstaion: Dogs in Metaphor and Idiom Illustrated. A Compendium of Words and Phrases Referring to Dogs

Forever Football?

sendai sleep master — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 08:44:36 -0800

J.R. Moehringer's essay discusses the end of football, the immortality of football, head injuries, and why what the sport means to America and to him.

The successful scientist thinks like a poet but works like a bookkeeper.

shakespeherian — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 08:52:25 -0800

Harvard sociobiologist E. O. Wilson explores The Origins of the Arts.

A Database of Metaphor

shivohum — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 18:06:33 -0800

The Mind is a Metaphor. A database of thousands of metaphors organized by category, like 18th century, Liquid, or Jacobite. It's maintained by University of Virginia English Professor Brad Pasanek.

"Please cut off a nanosecond and send it over to me."

Blazecock Pileon — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 12:58:24 -0800

Adm. Grace Hopper, inventor of the first compiler, explains how big a nanosecond is

In this white darkness, we will take the place of everything

Rhaomi — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 16:15:29 -0800

Just wait till we're alone together. Then I will tell you something new, something cold, something sleepy, something of cease and peace and the long bright curve of space. Go upstairs to your room. I will be waiting for you... As a rare October blizzard drifts a blanket of white across the Northeast just before Halloween, what better time to settle in and read (or watch) Conrad Aiken's most famous short story, "Silent Snow, Secret Snow." About a small boy who increasingly slips into an ominous fantasy of isolation and endless snow, it could be viewed as a metaphor about autism, Asperger's syndrome, and even schizophrenia before such conditions even had names. In addition to the 1934 short story, the tale has also been adapted as a creepy 1966 black-and-white short film (also at the Internet Archive) and as a Night Gallery episode (1, 2) narrated by Orson Welles. Or for a more academic take, see the essay "The Delicious Progress" examining Aiken's use of white as a symbol of psychological regression.

Every metaphor starts out as a wild beast

vidur — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:38:10 -0800

"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?]

The Metaphor Program

jack_mo — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 08:05:12 -0800

Daniel Soar on the militarisation of metaphor: Spies aren’t known for their cultural sensitivity. So it was a surprise when news broke last month that IARPA, a US government agency that funds ‘high-risk/high-payoff research’ into areas of interest to the ‘intelligence community’, had put out a call for contributions to its Metaphor Program, a five-year project to discover what a foreign culture’s metaphors can reveal about its beliefs.

What Do Conservatives Want?

Obscure Reference — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 17:51:15 -0800

Democrats help radical conservatives by accepting the deficit frame and arguing about what to cut. Even arguing against specific "cuts" is working within the conservative frame. What is the alternative? Pointing out what conservatives really want. Point out that there is plenty of money in America, and in Wisconsin. It is at the top. George Lakoff, professor of linguistics at UC, Berkeley, analyzes the metaphors conservatives use to frame issues and exposes what they really want. (Previously), (previously), (more previously), etc.

Life of a woman

twirlypen — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:11:26 -0800

Life of a woman. Bare, simple line drawings. Many open to interpretation.

"... that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape"

ollyollyoxenfree — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:18:12 -0800

Vulgar Army: Octoprop to Octopop is "an informal study into the representation of the Octopus in propaganda and political cartoons, and influence on, or co-option of, popular culture." Highlights include: The nation-state as an octopus in cartography. Standard oil in the 1800s represented as an octopus.

The Spark of Life

homunculus — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:38:57 -0800

Sparks of Life. "That the electric 'spark of life' figured prominently in debates over the nature of life in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is well known. Less well known is the fact that prior to this period, gunpowder was often identified with the substances that were necessary to life, if not as a vitalistic spirit, then as an essential element in the animation of the body. The idea of a spark of life went back to ancient times, likening living beings to the glowing embers of a fire. In the Old Testament, for example, the wise woman of Tekoah begs for the life of her son, pleading 'they will stamp out my last live ember.' But from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, this vital flame was often equated with gunpowder. There was fire in the blood: not electric, but pyrotechnic fire."

The flora....The flora....

Kronos_to_Earth — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:32:17 -0800

They started out as spritely saplings, but something went horribly wrong.... The lucky ones merely got a little funny, the others became tormented, monstrous. Creepy Trees.

Will They Make The World An Offer It Can't Refuse?

amyms — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:28:04 -0800

Pax Corleone Americana? "Can any of the candidates vying to become the next president of the United States match Michael’s cool, dispassionate courage in the face of epochal change? Will they avoid living in the comforting embrace of the past, from which both Tom and Sonny ultimately could not escape? Or will they emulate Michael’s flexibility—to preserve America’s position in a dangerous world?" The Godfather as metaphor.

Many See It As Circular

mmahaffie — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:49:01 -0800

How do you see time? Florentine graphic designer Camilla Torna is collecting hand-drawn personal visions of "time." It started as a personal collection from friends and students in the 1990s. In 2006 it was on-line with a submission form. Submissions are can be sorted by theme words, style or age of artist. Ages range from those in their first decade of life to those in their 70s. (Via Information Aesthetics)

En Garde!

dersins — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 09:29:26 -0800

The marine flatworm Pseudobiceros hancockanus engages in penis fencing [video]. SFW, I guess, unless your boss is a super uptight nudibranch or something.

Mike Gravel Rocks

pruner — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 02:27:20 -0800

Former Senator and current Presidential candidate Mike Gravel (D-AK) wants you to rock the vote ... or something.

George on Laura Bush: Carpet matches the curtains.

rzklkng — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 05:51:02 -0800

"As he has before, Bush told the story about how his first presidential decision was to pick a rug for the Oval Office..." In a speech before Ohio High Schoolers and business leaders in a Republican district outside of Dayton, the President made some interesting commentary on marriage, chicken-plucking, polling, his own legacy, comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam, and of course, the rug. Apparently, he loves the rug like Ronald Reagan loved Jelly Beans, talking about it all the time, even on the whitehouse.gov's video tour. Shortly after a President takes office, they make their own imprint on the character of the Oval Office by redecorating, a task usually taken by the First Lady. The rug, designed by Laura Bush is sunshine yellow, as the President stated he wanted the room to convey a sense of optimism, "because you can't make decisions unless you're optimistic that the decisions you make will lead to a better tomorrow." Hopefully the rug doesn't become a bookended anecdote to another Presidential "rising" sun.

No Right Turn

rzklkng — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 06:51:33 -0800

NASCAR as an example of a meritocracy with equal opportunity for all. While frequently maligned for it's relatively primitive technology (excluding safety ), the total lack of mechanical resemblance (other than appearance) of the "stock" cars to the brand they represent, soap-opera-slash-professional wrestling story lines, and being ripe political target for both the right and the left as well as marketers, it is a strong cultural force. The entrance of Toyota (likely to surpass GM as #2 US automaker in the near-future) into NASCAR (with the hopes of "winning on Sunday and selling on Monday" in the heartland) and the cheating scandal currently unravelling highlight an important concept woven into NASCAR's culture. [more]

transitional states of mind

nickyskye — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 13:55:25 -0800

The Tibetan Book of the Dead: Part One. Part Two. [YouTube videos] [more inside]

Dynamically vacuous

painquale — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 13:10:57 -0800

Beyond metaphysics, there is 'pataphysics. Beyond metaphor, there is pataphor.

Sport

semmi — Fri, 20 May 2005 13:53:47 -0800

Chess, as a political metaphor and ideological weapon.

Metaphors can kill

cbrody — Fri, 04 Apr 2003 18:30:55 -0800

War as metaphor, again. The linguist George Lakoff writes a sequel to his seminal piece on the first Gulf war. The Nation as Person, The Just War, War as Business (and Politics), War as Fairy Tale: will these ways of thinking ever be re-framed in the interests of peace and common humanity? Not if any dissent from the accepted line continues to be silenced. Source: Too Much News