Elimination of dead metaphor from writing
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This original article or essay is on elimination of dead metaphor, or lexicalized metaphor, from writing. One may aim at eliminating as much dead metaphor from writing as possible. It may seem to be a daunting task, but not entirely impossible.
One may ask what one gains from doing so, and that shall eventually be clarified. Some benefits sometimes gained are the reduction of ambiguity, a reduction of vocabulary to remember and an increase in mnemonic value.
A metaphor is dead in so far as it became its own sense of a word or phrase, and thereby gained the right to be covered by a dictionary, in contrast to ad hoc metaphors created e.g. in poetry. The user of a dead metaphor uses language literally, hence the distinction of dead, since otherwise, metaphorical use is by definition not literal. Not only are the secondary figurative senses often dead metaphors of the primary sense but also the primary senses may be dead metaphors of terms in a language from which they were borrowed. Thus, language shows that not only are words (syntactic objects) used to point to concepts (semantic objects), but also concepts (semantic objects) can be used to point to concepts (semantic objects). Thus, the concept of puncturing something with a sharp instrument can point to the concept of mathematical point.
To get things started, let us analyze some cases of elimination of dead metaphors:
- Instead of "X is nonsense", we may say "X is obviously untrue" if that is what we mean. Since, if a sentence has a clear and unambiguous semantics, it makes sense in that the semantics can be determined. By the replacement, we obtain increased clarity and precision as well, and turn language that may be considered impolite into one that is neutral. And if we want to tone down the statement, we may drop "obviously" and say only that "X is untrue".
- Instead of "X is false", we may say "X is untrue" (as in inaccurate) if that is what we mean. Thereby, we eliminate the figure of not genuine (lead sense in M-W) and the figure of deception (etymology in M-W). We gain reduced ambiguity as well by eliminating the sense not genuine. We pay the cost of increased number of syllables.
- Instead of "X is a demagogue", we may say "X is a dishonest arguer". The complaint we are addressing is that, by etymology, demagogue is something like folkleader (compare pedagogue) and folk leaders are not necessarily dishonest arguers; at the same time, not all dishonest arguers are folk leaders. Moreover, one may complain that the use of the word demagogue for the purpose is an ideological attack on folk or the people or at least on folk leaders; that may sound oversensitive, but is perhaps not entirely without merit. We may further complain that arguer is ambiguous: it could be one who supplies arguments or one who supplies a quarrel. This can lead to an amendment: "X is a dishonest argument maker".
- Instead of "X is a sophist", we may say that "X is a dishonest argument maker". The complaint we are addressing is that, by naive surface etymology, a sophist is a wisdomer or wiser and that the concept of dishonesty is not present on the surface level. Another objection to the word sophist can be that it smears the Ancient Greek teachers called sophists as dishonest argument makers when they were in fact something slightly different, teachers of certain kind of wisdom. Whatever they actually were, it could seem advisable not to cement a prejudicial unfavorable judgment of them into the vocabulary of language.
- Instead of "X is a dead metaphor", we may say that "X is a lexicalized metaphor". The word "lexicalized" (turned into a word of its own) is more literal than "dead". Alternatively, instead of avoiding the metaphor, one may choose a metaphor that seems more fitting, e.g. ossified metaphor or frozen metaphor; after all, a dead metaphor is in a sense very much alive, kicking and screaming in all its uses that became part of the language.
- Instead of "X is horrible", we may say "X is very bad", "X is very unpleasant" or "X is of very low quality", to avoid the image of causing horror, or down the etymological chain, of trembling.
- Instead of "X is a bachelor", we may say "X is an unmarried man", getting rid of the figures of a certain kind of knight or a certain kind of serf. If we say "X is a single man", we reduce the number of syllables, but introduce the figure of oneness and increase ambiguity.
If we are lucky, we may replace a single word with a single word, often a morphologically non-atomic word, e.g. untrue. If we are less lucky, we may need to replace a single word with a sequence of words, generally a syntactic construction, e.g. dishonest argument maker. If we insist on using a single word and accept ambiguity, we may choose malarguer, but that only points to badness, not dishonesty.
Often, we may not want to pay the price in the increased length. Thus, we may want not to replace point with infinitely thin little dot; for point, the complaint would have been that it hides the metaphor of puncturing.
When seeking a less metaphorical word or phrase for a given one, one may use a synonym dictionary or a thesaurus. Among the candidate synonyms, one may choose the one that is least metaphorical, in part with the use of etymology. For that, a thesaurus well integrated with an etymological dictionary is of benefit.
One may object to the enterprise by pointing out that the process is on the whole fighting the word overloading process of language. Whether one wants to engage in that enterprise depends on whether one appreciates the benefits more than the disadvantages or the effort. It seems very unlikely that the dead metaphor can be eliminated completely, but it sure can be eliminated to some extent.