I never metaphor I didn't like: a comprehensive compilation of history's greatest analogies, metaphors, and similes

341 Pages·2008·1.143 MB·English

by  Grothe, Mardy

i never metaphor i didn’t like
A Comprehensive Compilation of History’s
Greatest Analogies, Metaphors, and Similes
Dr. Mardy Grothe
dedication
To my very special grandson
Ryan Matthew Wood,
who at the age of eight
already knows about chiasmus and oxymoronica
and will soon be learning about
analogies, metaphors, and similes
contents
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: An Ice-Axe for the Frozen Sea Within
(Life-Altering Metaphors) 21
Chapter 2: Reserved Seats at a Banquet of Consequences
(The Human Condition) 40
Chapter 3: Humor Is the Shock Absorber of Life
(Wit & Humor) 60
Chapter 4: The Lights May Be on, but Nobody’s Home
(Insults & Criticism) 79
Chapter 5: Enclosing Wild Ideas Within a Wall of Words
(Definitive Metaphors) 100
Chapter 6: Life Is the Art of Drawing Without an Eraser
(Life) 117
Chapter 7: A Relationship Is Like a Shark
(Relationships) 138
Chapter 8: Love Is an Exploding Cigar We Willingly Smoke
(Love) 157
Chapter 9: Marriage Is a Souvenir of Love
(Marriage, Home & Family Life) 179
contents / iv
Chapter 10: Sex Is an Emotion in Motion
(Sex) 200
Chapter 11: Old & Young, We Are All on Our Last Cruise
(Ages & Stages of Life) 218
Chapter 12: An Actor Is a God in Captivity
(Stage & Screen) 236
Chapter 13: Washington, D.C., Is to Lying
What Wisconsin Is to Cheese
(Politics) 254
Chapter 14: Sports Is the Toy Department of Life
(Sports) 274
Chapter 15: Writing Is the Manual Labor of the Mind
(The Literary Life) 292
Acknowledgments 315
Index 317
About the Author
Other Books by Dr. Mardy Grothe
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
introduction
The sentence you are reading at this very moment is an example of prose
(the word comes from the Latin prosa, meaning “straightforward”).
Prose is the language people generally use to transmit information and ex-
press ideas. Closely resembling the patterns of everyday speech, prose is the
kind of writing typically found in books, newspapers, and magazines. These
are examples:
Prose and poetry are two methods
people can use to express ideas.
A committee is a questionable mechanism
for making decisions or solving problems.
Adolescence is a time of great turmoil.
Every now and then, though, prose is spiced up and becomes more fanci-
ful:
Prose is to poetry as walking is to dancing.
PAUL VALÉRY
A committee is a cul-de-sac down which
ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.
BA RNETT COCKS
introduction / 2
Adolescence is a kind of emotional seasickness.
ARTHUR KOESTLER
In the first set of observations, the prose is straightforward but prosaic,
meaning it lacks imagination and even borders on dull. In the second set, the
prose is enhanced by analogies, metaphors, and similes, a trio of extremely
valuable tools at the disposal of writers, orators, and poets. With the assis-
tance of these three stylistic devices, ordinary language is elevated, often to
an extraordinary degree. This is undoubtedly what the nineteenth-century
American journalist and poet William Cullen Bryant had in mind when he
wrote:
Eloquence is the poetry of prose.
This book will celebrate history’s most spectacular examples of poetic
prose—all constructed by the use of analogies, metaphors, and similes. Let ’s
begin by meeting the key players.
ANALOGY
From the dawn of civilization, human beings have tried to understand one
thing by relating it to something else. This approach—called analogical
thinking—has been extremely helpful as people try to make sense out of a
world that can often seem confusing or even incomprehensible.
Formally, an analogy is an attempt to state a relationship between two
things that don’t initially appear to have much in common (the word derives
from the Greek word analogia, formally meaning a “proportionate” rela-
tionship between two pairs of things). In what may be the oldest analogy
ever recorded, from around 1350 B.C., the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaton
was said to have observed:
introduction / 3
As the moon retains her nature,
though darkness spread itself before her face as a curtain,
so the Soul remains perfect
even in the bosom of the fool.
In this ancient observation, the pharaoh was drawing an analogy between
the moon hidden behind a curtain of darkness and a soul hidden behind a
curtain of foolishness. Both continue to exist, he maintains, even when they
cannot be seen. For many centuries, analogies have been used to instruct
people and to dispense moral lessons. In this case, the ethical principle em-
bedded in the analogy might be expressed this way: don’t be too quick to
shun or reject people, for behind all foolish or inappropriate actions there
exists a perfect soul within.
While analogical thinking goes back to the oldest days of antiquity, peo-
ple thinking about analogies these days are likely to recall those peculiar and
often perplexing constructions that have long been a staple of intelligence
tests and scholastic aptitude tests. The format will probably be familiar to
you:
illness : life :: (blank) : iron
a. steel b. blade c. forge d. rust
Following a convention going back to ancient times, the analogy is read
this way:
“Illness is to life as (blank) is to iron.”
The task here is to figure out which one of the four multiple-choice op-
tions bears the same relationship to iron as illness does to life. After a mo-
ment’s thought, the answer is easily reasoned out. Just as illness can threaten
or end a life, rust can threaten or destroy iron.
In the fourth century B.C., the Greek philosopher Antisthenes found
introduction / 4
another aspect of the human experience that was analogous to iron and
rust:
As iron is eaten away by rust,
so the envious are consumed by their own passion.
Rather than simply assert that envy is a destructive passion, Antisthenes
begins by taking a phenomenon that is well known—the damaging effect of
rust on iron—and relates it to something not so familiar—the damaging effect
of envy on people. By expressing his thought in an analogy, he made it very
easy for people to forge a mental picture of the slow, corrosive process where-
by one thing gradually eats away and eventually destroys something else.
People who say “Let me offer an analogy” are trying to explain one thing
by relating it to something else. The entry on analogy in The Concise Oxford
Dictionary of Literary Terms explains it this way:
Illustration of an idea by means of a more familiar idea that is
similar or parallel to it, and thus said to be analogous to it.
Structurally, analogies are often constructed in the A is to B as C is to D
format:
Reading is to the mind, As cold waters to a thirsty soul,
what exercise is to the body. so is good news from a far country.
JOSEPH ADDISON THE BIBLE—PROV ERBS 25:25
As soap is to the body, What garlic is to salad,
tears are to the soul. insanity is to art.
YIDDISH PROV ERB AUGUSTUS SAINT- GAUDENS
Sometimes the format is varied slightly, and the intention shifts from the
serious to the humorous: