Words whose metaphorical uses become part of their primary definitions

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Maybe I'm misconstruing what happens with these, but I feel like there should be tons of them -- could you help me come up with examples?

Like for instance: the primary original use of the word "tool" was probably to refer to objects -- first-order, non-abstract tools like hammers and awls. But of course we also say things like "this law is an important tool for fighting organized crime," and have done pretty much forever. And that usage starts off as a bit of a metaphor, right? A kind of second-order comparative use of the word? But of course at this point I think we mostly consider that a non-metaphorical use of the word -- it's drawn into the primary definition of the word.

So, umm ... I guess I'm looking for words like that, where a form of use that seems originally kind of metaphorical turns out to be apt and useful enough that it becomes just plain meaning. (I assume many of them will be like the "tool" example, where a word for something concrete expands to cover things that are abstract, too.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 3 July 2006 15:20 (eighteen years ago) link

"Blueprint" and "map" come to mind.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 3 July 2006 15:21 (eighteen years ago) link

"concrete"

xpost

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 3 July 2006 15:22 (eighteen years ago) link

'colour'

― Zora (Zora), Monday, 3 July 2006 15:24 (eighteen years ago) link

What about when the same word has both positive and negative metaphorical uses?

For example:

"He'll be a great tool in getting this done."

"Are you kidding me? Dude's a complete tool. I'm not talking to him."

― kingfish du lac (kingfish 2.0), Monday, 3 July 2006 15:33 (eighteen years ago) link

Good god yes -- this is basically every word ever, isn't it? Those are all great. Concrete, blueprint: are we just on a building tack because I started with "tool," or do we just do this most obviously when we use physical work-with-hands words to describe abstract stuff?

The thing that might mess with my idea on some of these, I guess, is that both senses could trace back to some common source. There's no really good example here, but take "concrete" -- it traces back to the Latin for "to grow together" or "to harden." I could imagine some of these words tracing back to Green or Latin words that actually mean the concept/metaphor more than the physical thing.

"Blueprint" rises above all that, though -- I mean, it's such a specific process-oriented term, named after the printing technique rather than the thing itself!

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 3 July 2006 15:50 (eighteen years ago) link

Can't really think of many but this sort of sounds like George Lakoff's conceptual metaphor thingy, where we treat abstract concepts as if they were part of the physical environment. So "grasp," meaning "understand,"
suggests that ideas are things which can be held. Even "understand" is a metaphor, since it connotes being close enough (standing under)to something to "grasp" it.

― slugbuggy (slugbuggy), Monday, 3 July 2006 15:51 (eighteen years ago) link

(This really is every word ever, nabs)

― Jesus Dan (Dan Perry), Monday, 3 July 2006 15:53 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, Dan, I guess that's the not-so-amazing thing that's getting to me today.

It's like that stoner thing where the super-obvious suddenly seems amazing -- you know, when you're all "you know what's incredible? The Pacific Ocean is, like, huge."

I've just been noticing this too much today, the way 90% of the words we use are built on (haha) metaphor.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 3 July 2006 16:43 (eighteen years ago) link

are we just on a building tack because...

"Tack"

---

also-
strawman, gatekeeper, ombudsman (maybe, sorta) .. a bunch of other job related words...

― DAVE, for #1 Hits of yesterday and today! (dave225.3), Monday, 3 July 2006 16:58 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/cia05/pacific_ocean_sm05.gif

it really is huge though, lookat it!

― rrrobyn sharkattack battleforcenet (rrrobyn), Monday, 3 July 2006 17:04 (eighteen years ago) link

The only non-metaphorical words are onomatopoeic.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Monday, 3 July 2006 17:05 (eighteen years ago) link

Ah, there really is a Mariana Trench between me and ILX sometimes

― DAVE, for #1 Hits of yesterday and today! (dave225.3), Monday, 3 July 2006 17:06 (eighteen years ago) link

"Strawman" still really retains the sense of being metaphorical, though. I mean, when we hear it we still have the image and mechanics of the actual straw man in mind. We do that a bit with "blueprint," too. I think I'm being more stonerishly mind-blown over the ones where the metaphor action is almost completely invisible to us.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 3 July 2006 17:09 (eighteen years ago) link

SOW: Rosetta Stone

Strawman ... Wireframe...?

― DAVE, for #1 Hits of yesterday and today! (dave225.3), Monday, 3 July 2006 17:10 (eighteen years ago) link

"you know what's incredible? The Pacific Ocean is, like, huge."

Tiny Elvis: Well, that's good man, that's real good. Hey, Sonny, Red!
Look how big that lamp is, man! That's hu-u-uge!

Sonny: [ laughs ]

Red: That's right, E!

Tiny Elvis: Well, man, I don't know how I'd ever turn that thing off, man. That is enormous!

Sonny: That's right, Elvis, that's a big lamp! [ slaps his knee ]

http://www.cagebypage.com/photos/snl_tinyelvis1.jpg http://www.cagebypage.com/photos/snl_tinyelvis3.jpg

― kingfish du lac (kingfish 2.0), Monday, 3 July 2006 17:30 (eighteen years ago) link

What about "shepherd," which has both literal noun & verb forms("a dude who actually herds sheep" or "the action of actually herding sheep")

as well as metaphorical noun & verb forms(e.g. "shepherding this project thru")?

Lakoff did point out that even the Lord's Prayer has metaphor in it. The Lord is our shepherd, but He isn't an actual guy in a actual field with a stick and dog, and we are not literally wooly, cloven-hoofed herbivores ambling around in said field. (an interesting contrast to claims the bible has only 100% literal truth)

― kingfish du lac (kingfish 2.0), Monday, 3 July 2006 17:50 (eighteen years ago) link

Okay but we're going way too far here, I think -- "The Lord is our shepherd" is recognizable as metaphor, surely? (Also, that's in the Lord's Prayer?) "Rosetta Stone" reads as a metaphor in almost all uses. (I can't think of many proper-noun things where other uses don't read as metaphor.) So I don't know how much those do it.

Not that there's any particular dividing line with this -- everything's kind of in flux between common metaphorical use and regular concrete use. But I feel like there are some where, if the metaphor were pointed out to you, you might actually be surprised to be reminded that it's a metaphor.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 3 July 2006 17:56 (eighteen years ago) link

Long, long ago I wrote a college-level paper on this, using the word "tap" as my primary example. Words all go through transformations where they are first applied metaphorically to novel situations or objects where primary words are unavailable or unsatisfactory, then the metaphoric meaning is captured as a primary meaning.

Incidentally, "tap" probably started in proto-Indo-European as an onomatopoetic word.

― Aimless (Aimless), Monday, 3 July 2006 18:01 (eighteen years ago) link

But I feel like there are some where, if the metaphor were pointed out to you, you might actually be surprised to be reminded that it's a metaphor.

wouldn't many/most compound english word falls into this?

― kingfish du lac (kingfish 2.0), Monday, 3 July 2006 18:02 (eighteen years ago) link

B-but when you tap that ass, it doesn't sound anything like that!

― Jesus Dan (Dan Perry), Monday, 3 July 2006 18:02 (eighteen years ago) link

Booty juice comes right from the source
What's the source? An ass, of course!
The kind that spreads out extra wide
The kind that's nice when you come inside.

― kingfish du lac (kingfish 2.0), Monday, 3 July 2006 18:08 (eighteen years ago) link

Is "vomit" onomatopoetic?

― Jesus Dan (Dan Perry), Monday, 3 July 2006 18:09 (eighteen years ago) link

Not on a monday.

― kingfish du lac (kingfish 2.0), Monday, 3 July 2006 18:12 (eighteen years ago) link

"Fiddle," meaning to fuss or tinker with, probably. That's kind of a lateral move, where what nabisco was descibing seems more vertical.

― slugbuggy (slugbuggy), Monday, 3 July 2006 18:20 (eighteen years ago) link

I was going to say "inkling," but it turns out inklings have nothing to do with ink.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 3 July 2006 18:43 (eighteen years ago) link

There's a word that -- archaically -- describes the profession "professional horse killer" that I can't remember, and has now fallen into commmon usage, completely deconstructed from its original meaning.

Also "moxie, spunk, vigor" and "debauchery."

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Monday, 3 July 2006 18:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Derrida vs. Saussure, etc.

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Monday, 3 July 2006 18:48 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm a huge fan of words that grow to encompass as definitionally valid their binary opposites, e.g. internal contranyms:

peruse, scan, dust, put, etc.

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Monday, 3 July 2006 18:52 (eighteen years ago) link

Hippowacker?

I think "pest" contains its own opposite. Minor annoyance carrier of pestilence.

― slugbuggy (slugbuggy), Monday, 3 July 2006 22:36 (eighteen years ago) link

pedantic correction: my quotation wasn't from the lord's prayer, but from the 23rd psalm

etc

― kingfish du lac (kingfish 2.0), Monday, 3 July 2006 22:37 (eighteen years ago) link

Ah, there was some lesser than dash dash dash greater than thingy in there to denote opposition.

― slugbuggy (slugbuggy), Monday, 3 July 2006 22:39 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm reading a book on Christianity and it's all excited about this kind of stuff too, drawing big parallels between "stand" and "understand," or the derivation of "conversion" from "turning back." I absolutely adore theological word maps that tie things up gorgeously.

― Maria (Maria), Monday, 3 July 2006 23:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Booty juice comes right from the source
What's the source? An ass, of course!
The kind that spreads out extra wide
The kind that's nice when you come inside.
-- kingfish du lac (jdsalmo...), July 3rd, 2006 2:08 PM. (kingfish 2.0) (link)

pedantic correction: my quotation wasn't from the lord's prayer, but from the 23rd psalm
etc

-- kingfish du lac (jdsalmo...), July 3rd, 2006 6:37 PM. (kingfish 2.0) (link)

― Fluffy Bear, Grand Admiral of the Hastings Thread Navy (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainb, Wednesday, 5 July 2006 17:12 (eighteen years ago) link

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