METAPHORS BE WITH YOU!

Originally, metaphor was a Greek word meaning “transfer”.

The Greek etymology is from meta, implying “a change” and pherein meaning “to bear, or carry.” Thus, the word metaphor itself has a metaphorical meaning in English, “a transfer of meaning from one thing to another”:

The clouds were low and hairy in the skies, like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes ...

Robert Frost, “Once by the Pacific”

and Scratching at the window with claws of pine, the wind wants in...

Imogene Bolls, “Coyote Wind”

Metaphors help us learn faster, better, and happier, because:

* They help us to easily understand something about the object or idea to which they are being applied; they create pictures in our minds.

* They form a compressed story, and can make speaking and writing more lively and interesting.

* They can communicate a great deal of meaning with just a word or a phrase.

* They imply rather than directly state relationships, so they can get listeners and readers to think about what they are hearing or reading.

* Metaphors are FUN to use! AND they allow your brain to BULLDOZE THROUGH BARRIERS!

Remember : A metaphor is when you say that something is something else, using figurative language to compare and contrast different objects or ideas. They are formed when words are put together to create pictures in your minds. Poets use metaphor-speak for an idea as if it were another idea.

In “The Highwayman” Alfred Noyes says, “The wind was a torrent of darkness and the Moon was a ghostly galleon”.

[Excerpted from the 'Thinkerbelles' edition of The InGenius Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]