The imminent danger of metaphor p3

IN INHERITANCE

Meanwhile, any married woman who has no children of her own will be pitifully pitied behind her back. Or mocked for looking after kids who are not really «hers». Or for looking after her cat/ cats as someone who will die ‘alone’. You might argue you never have but I bet you snort to anyone’s life whose idea of happiness doesn’t match yours. I’ve done…

Maybe that’s why the current movement to call the absent father a «sperm donor» or the woman an «egg donor»; seems superficial and terrifies language purists. These language purists are apparently not aware society changes too quickly to keep the language the way it used to be.

WHERE IS THE METAPHOR WITHIN THIS NONSENSE ABOUT LANGUAGE AND HOW IS IT RELATED TO WRITING FICTION?

Robert McKee, the guy who teaches how to write movie scripts, says the words are mere tools to create good stories with which to persuade people. Through images (movies have images).

Jane Aitchinson introduces us to the metaphor, by the use of words and whilst it can be deemed obvious (since she is a linguist and not a script writer); it comes to us that words bring out images of their own that will end up being translated into movie scenes.

I only need to name Switzerland and you will imagine cows as well as glorious and majestic peaks. But if I add tax paradise, then it ain’t as squeaky clean. It includes a few gangsters wearing white collars and using Mont Blanc pens.

Both, Aitchinson and McKee, reckon metaphors as powerful persuasive images. They change our reaction to events. And they need to grow roots into collective mindsets. They don’t work equally in China as they do in Ireland.

They have their own life force. Such as the word ‘ neo liberal’ is an insult in my country. It deems evil entrepreneurs ready to take everything away from the poor. No matter how much of a responsible company they do own or how many new companies they help to start¹. No matter how much they are part of the money religion we all profess.

That’s how that pair of American linguists were right. Metaphors are local. They shape imagined realities by persuading us the world is this and not that way.

Every language is a different world. As a writer you need command of the language. Not to make of it something beautiful [additional problem]. To persuade. To enchant. To create metaphors. To listen and be able to pick up the metaphors that could work in most places. To go up the ladder is better than down… Isn’t it?

Have fun making up your own metaphors. Pasto kalo.

1. Seriously ↩︎