With metaphors being something we tend to use without thinking, Lakoff and Johnson’s, Metaphors We Live By, is somewhat of a deconstruction of what a metaphor truly is. While at one point a metaphor might have been a thought or action, many metaphors have now become something that is instilled in our minds. The more people looked to express themselves through a metaphor, the more society has come to accept these words as a norm.
The line “The essence of a metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” pretty much sums up this whole situation. It would only make sense that when we as a society gains more experience,more metaphors will have the opportunity to spring forth. “Argument is war” is one of the metaphors they touched on during the piece and it was described as something we were hardly ever conscious of. While our understanding of war may be something on a much larger scale, an argument is simply the same thing on a smaller scale. It took time for people to put two and two together. Just as how at one point we would have never thought of thinking of argument and war being anything close to the same, there was a time where time and money were never thought of as ever being able to go hand in hand. This piece showed me another way of looking at not only metaphors, but how I think as a whole. The way I talked really seemed to fit what Reddy documented, with how a number of expressions in English “account for at least 70 percent” my speaking. With many of the points the author touched on being noteworthy, it was clear that they wanted us to understand that our language as a whole is one that is ever-evolving.
I thought your response was very fascinating, as it shed light on a new perspective than I had. It’s great that you acknowledged the passage as a “deconstruction” of a metaphor, as that is a very good way of putting it. I like your idea that more metaphors emerge as society grows, and shows the power that people have through language. It is refreshing to know that we hold the ability to create something on a scale larger than ourselves.