Metaphors: Johnson: The impossibility of being literal | The Economist - 1 views
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IT IS literally impossible to be literal.
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Guy Deutscher, a linguist at the University of Manchester, calls all language “a reef of dead metaphor”. Most of the time we do not realise that nearly every word that comes out of our mouths has made some kind of jump from older, concrete meanings to the ones we use today. This process is simple language change. Yesterday’s metaphors become so common that today we don’t process them as metaphors at all.
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if “tree” and “rock” aren’t metaphors, nearly everything else in our vocabulary seems to be. For example, you cannot use “independent” without metaphor, unless you mean “not hanging from”. You can’t use “transpire” unless you mean “to breathe through”. The first English meaning of a book was “a written document”. If we want to avoid all metaphorised language (If we want to be “literal”), we must constantly rush to a historical dictionary and frantically check
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In every language, pretty much everything is metaphor—even good old “literally”, the battle-axe of those who think that words can always be pinned down precisely.
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The body of educated English speakers has decided, by voice and by deed, that “literally” does mean something real in the real world. Namely, “not figuratively, allegorically”. Widespread educated usage is ultimately what determines its meaning. And perhaps that is concrete enough.