There are a lot of short, pithy phrases in English that can quickly communicate a complex idea without the need for long explanations. If I call someone an 'old Scrooge,' I need not explain the entire plot of A Christmas Carol. If you're a trekky, you may remember the phrase, "Temba, his arms wide," and other such nerdy irrelevances which I deny knowing anything about.
The two examples I've given exist on two very different ends of the spectrum. Nearly every English speaking person will recognize the meaning behind the name 'Scrooge,' whether or not he has ever read any Dickens, but you'll be hard pressed to find many who understand the earlier reference to "Darmok" even among fans of the show.
I've begun Owen Barfield's Poetic Diction. It's marvelous, and it touched upon a point I have always felt but have never been able to express clearly. In chapter three (titled, Metaphor), Barfield writes:
[O]ne of the first things that a student of etymology . . . discovers is that every modern language . . . is apparently nothing, from beginning to end, but an unconscionable tissue of dead . . . metaphors.
He goes on to list several examples of apparently "objective" words which are really metaphors so old that we have forgotten they were metaphors at all. Metaphors, it seems to me, is nearly a synonym to language. When my sister and I were growing up together, we had a language of metaphors that has since died, but it was our language. It was English, but it would have been difficult for an outsider to decipher unless he had seen all the movies and read all the books that we had. The whole thing started as a game. We were trying to pull one over on each other. If we both had seen the movie or read the book, it was fair play to reference it in casual conversation. If the other didn't catch on, he or she would be compelled to figure it out.
That was my earliest language, and it has since colored how I think. I am so married to metaphor in how I perceive the world and express myself, that a beloved high school teacher once sat me down and told me directly to say what I meant directly instead of constantly stretching the bounds of simile.
I think this has much to do with why stories are important. It is through stories that we understand the world. Perception is always part metaphor. We cannot see reality. We can only tell stories about it. The better the stories we tell, the closer we get to living in the truth.
• What are some stories that have helped you understand life?
• What's a favorite idiom of yours?
