I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World
Page 27
Flatlanders, 167–68, 171–72, 178
football metaphors, 126–27
footnote, 21n
forward, 95–96, 100
Foundations of Science (Poincaré), 15
Fourier, Jean-Baptiste-Joseph, 169–70
framing, 162–65
Franklin, Benjamin, 207
free association, 62–63
freedom fries, 119–20
Freud, Sigmund, 62–63, 207
frogs, and pattern recognition, 36–38
frontoinsula cortex (FI), 143
Frost, Robert, 35–36, 43, 197
Futurological Congress, The (Lem), 151
Gardner, John, 59
Geary, Gilles, 154, 155
Geary, Hendrikje, 156, 179
Geary, Theresa, 208–11, 222
Geary, Tristan, 154, 159–60, 162, 184
Gentner, Dedre, 160–61
Gesture and Thought (McNeill), 108–10
gestures, 106–11, 138
Gibbs, Raymond, Jr., 105–6
Gilman, James, 139
Gilovich, Thomas, 116–17, 127
Glucksberg, Sam, 117–19, 164, 168–69
gnostic neurons, 91–92
Goodman, Nelson, 11, 25, 149
Gordon, William J. J., 198–201, 206
Grady, Joseph, 24, 120–25
Great Recession of 2008–2009, 32, 66–69
greenhouse effect, 169–70
greenhouse gases, 121, 169
Grove, David, 211–22
guided imagery, 212–15
gullibility, 34–38
Haddon, Mark, 46–47
Hail Mary pass, 126
Hands (Napier), 107
headline, 21n
Heider, Fritz, 40, 41, 46, 60, 104
Heine, Heinrich, 166
History in English Words (Barfield), 20
Hobbes, Thomas, 18–19, 127–28
Hollis, Karyn, 144
Hooke, Robert, 169
hot-hand theory, 38–39
Hubbard, Edward, 81
Hui Tzu, 171–72
Igbo people, 186, 194
“I is an other,” 2, 8
impression formation, 82–83, 97–98
inkblot images, 62–65
innovation, 197–207
intention questions, 216
interaction theory, 146
intuition, 23, 49
Iowa Writers’ Workshop, 58–59
Iraq, Gulf War, 125–26
Iraq War, 119–20
isti’ara, 9
Izambard, Georges, 1–2
Jarrell, Randall, 165–66
Jerome, Saint, 14
Johnson, Lyndon, 117
Johnson, Mark, 88, 90–91, 94, 116
jokes, 140–43
“Juliet is the sun,” 8–10, 11–12, 119
Jung, Carl, 62–66, 212, 213–14
Kafka, Franz, 145, 184
Kahneman, Daniel, 38
kennings, 153–54, 162
Kepler, Johannes, 178
Kerlikowske, Gil, 125
KFC, 73–74
klecksography, 63
koans, 193–94
Köhler, Wolfgang, 80–82
Konorski, Jerzy, 91–92
Koskinas, Georg, 143
Kövecses, Zoltán, 92
Kuhn, Thomas, 177–78
Lakoff, George, 88, 90–91, 94, 116, 121
Langer, Suzanne K., 170
Languages of Art (Goodman), 11
Lawley, James, 208–12, 214–21
Leavis, Donald, 147– 48, 163, 166
Lee, Laurie, 141, 149
Lem, Stanislaw, 151
Leslie, Alan, 51–52, 146, 155
Leviathan (Hobbes), 18–19, 127–28
Lewis, C. S., 167–69, 171–72, 178, 197
Lewis, Wyndham, 25
Lhermitte, Jacques Jean, 112–13, 135
ligamen, 140, 145, 149–50
light, 131–32
Lincoln, Abraham, 6–7, 191–92
literal, 21–22
Locke, John, 18–19
Loptsson, Jon, 152
“Love Is Like a Bottle of Gin” (song), 79
Lucretius, 14
Macbeth effect, 133–34
McCloskey, Deirdre N., 30, 43
McCulloch, Warren S., 37–38, 43
McDonald’s, 73–74
McKellin, William H., 183
McNeill, David, 108–10
Managalese people, 182–83
“man is a wolf,” 146– 47, 174
Man on Wire (documentary), 66–67
Mänti language, 55
Marketing Metaphoria (Zaltman), 66
Marks, Lawrence E., 76
Martin, Emily, 129–30
Marx, Karl, 71
master’s metaphor, 172
Mencius, 171–72
menstruation, 129–30
Merritt, Stephin, 79
metaphor, etymology of, 9
Metaphors in Mind (Lawley and Tompkins), 211
Micrographia (Hooke), 169
Mill, John Stuart, 178
Mill on the Floss, The (Eliot), 211
mind, the, 44–57
Mindblindness (Baron-Cohen), 50, 54
mirror neurons, 53–54, 105, 108–9
mixed metaphors, 143– 45
money, 29– 43
Monroe, Harriet, 197, 223, 224
Moore, Marianne, 74
Morris, Michael W., 30–32, 42–43
moving time questions, 216
Muhammad cartoons, 120
Müller, Cornelia, 110
mundane metaphors, 19, 82
“My job is a jail,” 52–53
Mysteries of Eloquence, The (Al-Jurjani), 9
Nagel, Thomas, 175–76
Napier, John, 107
Nasrudin (Nasreddin), Mullah, 193–94
“nation is a body,” 127–29
Nerlove, Harriet, 157–58
“Nettles” (Scannell), 159–60
neurons, 79–80, 91–92, 96–97. See also mirror neurons
New Yorker, 144
Ney, Robert W., 119–20
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 116, 135
“90 North” (Jarrell), 165–66
nose thumb, 107
“nostrils like badger-holes,” 141, 149
Obama, Barack, 6–7, 125, 127, 132
object metaphors, 30–32, 41–42
objets trouvés, 205–6
OK sign, 107
On the Nature of the Universe (Lucretius), 14
Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 176–77
Orwell, George, 135
Osborn, Alex Faickney, 198
Oxford English Dictionary, 21–22
parables, 179–84, 191–96, 221
parting shot, 22
pattern recognition, 32–42, 63
perception, 78–82. See also physiognomic perception
personification, 59–61
Petit, Philippe, 66–67
physical heat, 101–3
physiognomic perception, 40–41, 63
Piaget, Jean, 51, 158–59
Picasso, Pablo, 205–6
Pinker, Steven, 88
Pittsburgh Penguins, 103–4
Planck, Max, 170
pleasure, 137–51
“Poet, The” (Emerson), 28
“Poetry” (Moore), 74
Poincaré, Henri, 13, 14–15
politics, 112–36
Pólya, George, 174
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 211–21
Prati, Gioacchino, 138–39
Premack, David, 41–42
Presley, Elvis, 7–8, 16, 17
pretend play, 50–53
priming, 96–103, 113–16, 120, 132
Prince, George, 198–201, 206
Principles of Comparative Philology, The (Sayce), 22–23
Pringles, 206
Prose Edda, 152–53, 162
proverbs, 184–96
proximity, 96–97
P
rudential, 69
psychology, 208–22
public structures, 122–24
puns, 55–56
Quintilian, 143–44
Radboud University, 141–42
Ramachandran, Vilayanur, 79–81, 85–86
random walk, 42–43
Rattan, Aneeta, 132–33
red (color), 103–4
Resolving Traumatic Memories (Grove), 216
Rhetoric of Economics, The (McCloskey), 30, 43
Rimbaud, Arthur, 1–2, 8, 224
Rips, Lance, 165–66
Rizzolatti, Giacomo, 108–9, 138
rock-paper-scissors (game), 106–7
Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare), 8–10, 11–12, 119
Rorschach, Hermann, 62–63
Rowland, Neal, 120
Russell, John, 184
Savage-Rumbaugh, Sue, 154
Sayce, A. H., 22–23
scaffolding, 87
Scannell, Vernon, 159–60
Scholl, Brian, 40–41
Schwarzkopf, Norman, 126
science, 167–78
Scruton, Roger, 86
“Season in Hell, A” (Rimbaud), 2
Second Nature (Edelman), 34
“seeing is knowing,” 23–24, 89–90
Seer Letters (Rimbaud), 1–2
Shakespeare, William, Romeo and Juliet, 8–10, 11–12, 119
Sharklet Technologies, 204–5
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 114–15, 135
Sherman, Gary, 130–31
Shklovsky, Victor, 199–200
shoulder, 10
“show you the ropes,” 47
similes, 8, 141, 160–61
Simmel, Mary-Ann, 40, 41, 46, 60, 104
Slovic, Paul, 61, 62
Smith, Richard, 66–68, 70, 72
“Smoke” (game), 58–59
Song of Songs, 2–3
Sontag, Susan, 130, 134, 213
spatial metaphors, 96–99
speculate, 23
spill the beans, 188
sports metaphors, 125–27
Stalder, Daniel, 187
Stapledon, Olaf, 90, 100
Star Maker (Stapledon), 90, 100
Star Trek: The Next Generation (TV show), 162
Stevens, Wallace, 197–98
stock market, 27–32, 36, 38, 39– 40, 42–43, 104
Stow, John, 225
StrategyOne, 65–66
string theory, 170
Stroop, John Ridley, 117
Stroop effect, 117–18
Stroop tests, 117–19, 130–31
Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The (Kuhn), 177–78
Stuff of Thought, The (Pinker), 88
Sturluson, Snorri, 152–53, 162
Sumerian people, 185–86
Survey of London (Stow), 225
sweet, 97–98
symbolic modeling, 208–12
symbolic re-namings, 119–25
syncretism, 51
Synectics, 198–204, 206
Synecticsworld, 200–204
synesthetic metaphors (synesthesia), 76–93
talkback chains, 122–24
Tammet, Daniel, 54–55, 79–80
taste, 22, 77–78, 90
Telephone (game), 122
Thames River, 225–26
theory of mind, 49–50
Thompson, Philip, 70
thought, 5–16
“Three Academic Pieces” (Stevens), 197–98
thumbs-up sign, 11
“time is motion,” 94–100
Tompkins, Penny, 208–12, 214–21
Tourangeau, Roger, 165–66
truth, 19
Turkana culture, 110–11
Turner, Mark, 91
Tversky, Amos, 38–39, 162–64, 168
uncanny, the, 207
“us and them” metaphor, 121–22
Vico, Giambattista, 137–40, 187–88
Vietnam War, 116–17
visual metaphors, 11, 48–49
Von Economo, Constantin, 143
Von Economo cells, 143–44, 150
Walker, Caitlin, 215–16, 219–20
Wallace, George, 147– 48
war and sports metaphors, 125–27
warmth, 82–84
weight, 84–85
Weston, Drew, 132
“What is it like to be a bat?”, 175–76
Wilkowski, Benjamin M., 101–3
Williams, Connie, 200–204
Williamson, Judith, 71–72
Winner, Ellen, 156
Woman in the Body, The (Martin), 129–30
Woodruff, Guy, 41– 42
worn-out metaphors, 23, 116–17, 136
Zaltman, Gerald, 62–66. See also ZMET
ZMET (Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique), 62–72
Acknowledgments
“What resembles nothing does not exist,” the French poet Paul Valéry wrote in one of his many encomiums to metaphor. This book would not exist without the insights and assistance of Simon Baron-Cohen, who helped me make the right connections among autism, synesthesia, and metaphor; Max Brockbank, master weaver of my many-stranded Web site; Michael Brunton, for whom no research request was too bizarre and no academic paper too obscure; David Deutsch, for his tasty analogical rice puddings; James Lawley and Penny Tompkins, who, in addition to taking me on a guided tour of clean language, read the entire penultimate version of this book and made comments that opened up new vistas in my metaphor landscape; Sara Levine, for sharing with me her spotty metaphor bibliography, which turned out to hit exactly the right spot; the literary estate of Vernon Scannell for permission to reproduce the poem “Nettles”; ZMETicians Richard Smith and Noleen Robinson of Business Development Research Consultants in London (and Olson Zaltman Associates, which licenses ZMET to BDRC), for my ZMET consultation and collage; Adam Somlai-Fischer of Prezi.com, who gave my metaphor talk its Prezi panache; Connie Williams of Synecticsworld, for making the strange world of synectics familiar; Jason Zweig, whose comments on the “How High Can a Dead Cat Bounce?” chapter were right on the money and whose own book, Your Money and Your Brain, informed much of my thinking about behavioral economics; those individuals who agreed to be interviewed for this book but did not want their identities revealed; Gillian Blake, Katinka Matson, and Jeanette Perez, for—literally—making this book happen; and Linda, Gilles, Tristan, and Hendrikje: apples of my eye and icing on my cake.
Also by James Geary
Geary’s Guide to the World’s Great Aphorists
The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism
The Body Electric: An Anatomy of the New Bionic Senses
Copyright
I IS AN OTHER. Copyright © 2011 by James Geary. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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1. “A Poet makes himself a visionary . . .” Rimbaud, Arthur. Complete Works. Translated by Paul Schmidt. New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1976, p. 102.
2. A language that “will include everything . . .” Ibid., p. 103.
3. “I got used to elementary hallucination . . .” Ibid., p. 205.
4. “I is an other.” Ibid., p. 100.
5. “A round goblet never lacking mixed wine.” Hunt, Patrick. Poetry in the Song of Songs: A Literary Analysis. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2008, p. 327.
6. “The gazelle has stolen its eyes from my beloved.” Al-Jurjani, Abdalqahir. The Mysteries of Eloquence. Ritter, Hellmut, ed. Istanbul: Government Press, 1954, p. 20.
7. One metaphor for every ten to twenty-five words. Cameron, Lynne. “Metaphor and Talk.” In: The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought. Gibbs, Raymond W., Jr., ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, p. 199. This figure comes from an analysis of different types of talk, including ordinary discourse, college lectures, and doctor–patient interviews. An analysis of TV shows found speakers used approximately one metaphor for every twenty-five words. See: Bowdle, Brian F., and Gentner, Dedre. “The Career of Metaphor.” Psychological Review 112, 1, 2005, p. 193.
8. Six metaphors a minute. Gibbs, Raymond W., Jr. The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language, and Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 123–124. Gibbs based this statistic on analyses of psychotherapeutic interviews, essays, the 1960 Kennedy–Nixon presidential debates, and episodes of the MacNeil/Lehrer news program on PBS.
9. The Australian weather forecast. From the Weather page of the BBC Web site on March 15, 2010.
10. “Risks to U.K. Recovery Lurk behind Cloudy Outlook.” From a Reuters article on March 15, 2010. Available at uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLNE62903A20100310.
11. Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Available at http://www.visit-gettysburg.com/the-gettysburg-address-text.html.
12. The fourth paragraph of Barack Obama’s inaugural address. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text-obama.html.
13. “She touched my hand . . .” “All Shook Up.” Music and lyrics by Otis Blackwell/Elvis Presley.