metaphor of the month – Richmond Writing

Metaphors of the Month! Nautical Terms

Strolling through the Second Floor of Boatwright Library the other day, I spotted some works on display from our Rare-Books collection. Since I have an unfathomable interest in nautical words, I turned a weather eye toward that case of treasures.

It must the the lore of sea faring that hooks me. I’m decidedly not a “water person,” my biggest adventures in a boat involves paddling a 12′ kayak in the salt marshes of Virginia’s Eastern Shore. When I see the line of breakers meaning the bay or ocean, I pivot back and head for home. So I’m an armchair swab, I suppose. Since “swab,” being the verb for mopping up a deck, can also mean “sailor,” we have our first October metaphor.

The image snapped by me comes from Jessica Spring’s book Fathoming, printed in a special 2015 edition with a set of tobacco cards (itself an old-timey collectible). The cards pictured feature three metaphors clearly from sailing or ships: “three sheets to the wind,” “loose cannon,” and “in the same boat.” I will leave it up to the reader to recall times they or someone they know embodied any of those phrases.

Yet “Rummage Sale” proved new to me. The description reads “from the French arrumage, to load a cargo ship. Damaged cargo was sold as arrumage, or rummage.” We don’t say “rummage sale” too often these days, with land lubbers’ “flea markets,” or in the UK, motorists’ “boot sales” taking their place.

Other nautical metaphors can be found all around us. Think of how frequently “anchor” works as an active verb or strategically employed noun.

Some have become bit dated, like “steamer trunk”: I suspect that few of us travel with them, today. Half a century ago, however, college students often toted one to the dorm. There it then served as a bench (if sturdy enough), a table, or an extra closet to hold extra linens, maybe a secret bottle to let said student and friends get three sheets to the wind.

When bad weather looms, I say “batten down the hatches,” though I did not know what a “batten” was until I restored some 150 year-old board-and-batten doors from a farmhouse. Battens are the nailed-down cross boards that hold the door together. If someone says “pipe down,” they are metaphorically sounding a bosun’s whistle, while you probably learned the ropes without ever climbing a ship’s rigging. And I do tell employees that for some events, we need all hands on deck.

You can amuse yourself for a long time looking over the nautical terms that NOAA describes in a blog post. You may even find some of these terms slipping into harbor in academic prose. Meanwhile, don’t fall into the doldrums before the next post. Let NOAA’s post and Captain Google tide you over. I’ll weigh anchor now, so until next time, fair winds and smooth sailing.

Send in useful words or metaphors, by e-mailing me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Metaphor of the Month! Mercurial

Special thanks to contributor Sarah Spencer, studying Psychology at Richmond. She nominated this word, one I use personally but have not yet covered here.

August proves generally hot in Central Virginia, and even if nearly all modern thermometers do not use toxic mercury, the mercury does begin to rise and fall more than in July. Our most mercurial months, October and March, lie in wait. Our metaphor refers to these quick rises or drops, but not merely in temperature. A mercurial person shifts moods as fast as temperatures in Fall or Spring.

The OED is acting up today, but I got as far as seeing a 14th Century date of first recorded use, as well as the definitions “having a lively, volatile, or restless nature.” I have encountered the rather dainty term in literature; it also appears in journalistic pieces about public figures with thin skins; it gives us a polite alternative to calling someone a “brat,” or a “jerk.” Not all mercurial persons are mean; one might shift back and forth from giddy to sad without hurting anyone else. A mercurial child (if not your own) who throws a tantrum in a store can be humorous.

Ultimately, our term goes back to the fleet-footed Roman god Mercury, who lent his name to quicksilver, the element found in older thermometers.

Thanks, Sarah. I hope you can avoid mercurial persons, except in a professional capacity, even if we cannot avoid mercurial weather.

This blog will roll on into better weather and the start of classes, so send words and metaphors of interest by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or by leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

Metaphor of the Month! Shrinking Violet

Editor’s Note: Leo Barnes is doing English-Language teaching work in Indonesia this summer, part of Dr. Leslie Bohon’s cohort of excellent students. He sends us this entry, for a metaphor first recorded by the OED in 1915.

A shrinking violet is an exaggeratedly shy person. Since violets grow in the low herb layer of most forests, their rich purple petals are often veiled behind other vegetation. So the metaphor goes, getting a shy person out of their shell is as hard as spotting violets in a forest.

In pop culture, two figures – ironically highly visible superheroes – come to mind: Violet Parr and Salu Digby. Parr, the shy heroine from the Incredibles franchise, has the power of invisibility while Digby from DC comics is better known as her alter ego Shrinking Violet, and can shrink herself. How apropos!

While many around them often overlook shrinking violets, both in popular media and real life, they should not judge a book by its cover. Charismatic Atticus Finch may have endeared himself to readers in To Kill a Mockingbird but it was Boo Radley, the town recluse, who saved the day. In Harry Potter, the unprepossessing Neville Longbottom was the one who ultimately killed Voldemort.

In 2014, Ronald Read, a Vermont janitor and gas station clerk, donated six million dollars to his town library and hospital – money he had earned over a lifetime of frugality and investing. This from a man who barely graduated high school and was often mistaken for being broke.

While shrinking violets can be difficult to draw out, in my book a reserved nature is certainly better than an overbearing one. Sometimes shyness is endearing and, in the case of Read or Radley, even noble.

Editor’s Note: While the flowers of the violet plants have long shrunk in my garden, we still need words and metaphors. Send them to me by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Creative-Commons images by Leo Barnes.

Metaphor of the Month! Shrinking Violet

By Leo Barnes

In pop culture, two figures – ironically highly visible superheroes – come to mind: Violet Parr and Salu Digby. Parr, the shy heroine from The Incredibles franchise, has the power of invisibility while Digby from DC comics is better known as her alter ego Shrinking Violet, and can shrink herself. How apropos!

While we might often overlook shrinking violets, both popular media and real life remind us not to judge a book by its cover. Charismatic Atticus Finch may have endeared himself to readers in To Kill a Mockingbird but it was Boo Radley, the town recluse, who saved the day. In the Harry Potter novels, the unprepossessing Neville Longbottom was the one who ultimately killed Voldemort. In 2014, Ronald Read, a Vermont janitor and gas station clerk, donated six million dollars to his town library and hospital – money he had earned over a lifetime of frugality and investing. This from a man who barely graduated high school and was often mistaken for being broke.

Editor’s Note: Thank you, Leo, for another excellent guest-post. I found a claim of first usage in 1820, followed by explosive growth on both sides of the Atlantic, here.

Leo’s in Indonesia for the summer, teaching English in Kediri in June as part of Dr. Leslie Bohon’s Global EFL program. I’m jealous!

The violets may have faded in my yard, but the blog continues all summer after a hiatus (a 2022 WOTW) for the rest of June. You might, however, see a loan-word from Irish here, mid-month.

As you enjoy your holidays, send words and metaphors to me by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Metaphor of the Month! Bittersweet

So here we are, on the final day of classes. Exam week looms, then a break until commencement. I’ll attend with some cherished faculty Colleagues who are about to retire. My own retirement comes at the end of the Fall term, so this Commencement ceremony will be doubly bittersweet.

What a fine and timely word. Yet when was it first coined? The etymology needs no explication, though the usage has gone from a 14th Century origin meaning a food or drink that is both bitter and sweet to adjectives literal and metaphorical.

In the realm of nouns, one can still find a variety of apple called a Bittersweet. Indeed, the noun for “a bitter sweet” has usage stretching back nearly as far, and the OED’s entry shows it, too, as obsolete. Modern usage of the adjective, beyond a literal sense close to the 14th Century’s, implies “something, such as an experience or emotion, that is both pleasant and tinged with pain or sadness.”

We all have these experiences that stay in memory; I will never forget my final day in Paris, after a year abroad teaching in Spain. The following day I’d begin my trek back to the States and graduate school in the Fall of 1986. That path led, 38 years later, to the desk here in the Humanities building where I’m typing this entry. Suffice to say that I didn’t want to leave Paris and, in fact, would have preferred going back to Madrid for another year of teaching. Sometimes I still wish that door had not closed.

Returning to Spain then was not possible, which made the moment poignant, unforgettable. Had the option existed, I probably would not sharply recall every moment of that last day in the French capital.

So, graduates, some advice: talk a slow, bittersweet walk around campus, ear-buds out, phone tucked away. Just look at all the places where you built memories in four years. The next 34 years will fly by.

This blog will continue in the summer months, so send words and metaphors of interest by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or by leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Image source: Nathan Gibbs at Flickr.

Metaphor of the Month! Hobson’s Choice

By Leo Barnes

Editor’s note: I’m delighted to get a suggestion and post from Leo. I invite other student readers to send me words and metaphors. I appreciate Leo’s mention of Joseph Heller’s amazing novel, one that used to be read widely on college campuses and would merit reading again in these times.

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines Hobson’s Choice as an apparently free choice that in reality is more like an ultimatum. The word comes from a British 17th-century stable owner named Thomas Hobson from Cambridge. Hobson was a courier with a large stable of horses he would rent out to university students looking to go riding or visit nearby London.

He noticed that all the students only wanted to ride his best horses while the rest got no use at all. This was problematic. His most popular horses were being overworked while the rest were becoming deconditioned. Hobson fixed this by devising a system where he’d switch the horses everyday from stall to stall on a planned circuit. The horse nearest the stable entrance — and only that horse — was what Hobson would rent to students for that day. Students had the choice of that horse or no horse at all.

portrait of Thomas Hobson — Thomas Hobson, by Unknown artist (1629)

What comes to mind when I think of Hobson’s Choice is Joseph Heller’s hilarious book Catch-22. The story takes place during the second World War where Milo Minderbinder — the squadron mess officer — gives his fellow servicemen a choice that’s not a choice at all:

“[Milo] raised the price of food in his mess halls so high that all officers and enlisted men had to turn over all their pay to him in order to eat. Their alternative, there was an alternative, of course—since Milo detested coercion, and was a vocal champion of freedom of choice—was to starve.”

If you have a word or metaphor you enjoy, send them by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or by leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Image credits: Ἰάσων at Flickr for horses, Wikipedia for image of Thomas Hobson.

Metaphor of the Month! Fast and Loose

Edith Wharton, one of my favorite novelists, wrote a juvenile novel called Fast and Loose, and later she made it a plot point in one of her published works. When reading that, I had expected this metaphor to be a modern one she employed in the late 1800s. Yet I found, on some delving into the OED’s entry, a first example from the year 1555, though one from two years later may be more readable, given how much English spelling has changed in half a millennium: “Of a new maried studient that plaied fast or lose.”

The reference does not necessarily portend anything salacious. Our film poster, above, does tend to imply exactly that. It’s not from Wharton’s works but it shows how popular the metaphor became by the late 1920s.

The OED’s first definition remains remarkably consistent today, “to be inconstant or inconsistent, esp. regarding one’s obligations to others; to behave immorally or irresponsibly.” Our “studient” and the 20s Flapper in the movie may have played fast and loose with money. That tends to be our usage today, or perhaps, and just as sadly, with facts.

Being irresponsible does not equal being immoral. That said, the drift of our metaphor implies doing something that hurts others. I’d say that being fast and loose with money or facts tends to injure, and it’s all too common with many public figures. So you decide if they deserve our admiration and attention.

If you have a word or metaphor you enjoy, send them by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Image source: Wikipedia page about the 1930 film.

Metaphor of the Month! The Belle Époque

No one alive today can recall the mood of what we in the States call, variously “The Gilded Age,” “The Gay 90s,”and “The Progressive Era.” In England we had The late-Victorian and Edwardian Eras, or in France The Belle Époque. For the most part the era merited warm memories. I see it, at this distance, as top hats and lovely dresses, champagne and dancing, cigars and caviar, Renoir boating-parties and dinners by the Seine.

A few talented grumps disagreed; Mark Twain and co-author Charles Dudley Warner perceived and named The Gilded Age for a crass shallowness, the equivalent of the golden-escalator rides of our time. For those of means and artistic sensibilities, however, The Belle Époque seems to have been a rather splendid time to be alive. Everywhere new ideas abounded. Consider the cultural movements such as Art Nouveau, daring ideas in music, dance, photography, philosophy, or physics. Imagine how Einstein’s theories challenged settled notions of space and time. Close to my heart, literary modernism upended what novels would do.

In academic reading, students of literature and history might run across our metaphor, “The Beautiful Time” in references to the arts and politics before The Great War we now call World War I. Mechanized horrors of trench warfare, mustard gas, artillery barrages, infantry charging machine guns, Zeppelin-bombings of London, and more lay just over the horizon like submerged U-Boats. In reading R.W.B. Lewis’ magisterial biography of novelist Edith Wharton, I find it stunning how stunned she, and most of her friends, were by the outbreak of war. Their times simply seemed too civilized, unlike our fearful era, for a global conflict. Frankly, we live in dark times and our media-feeds turn a profit reminding us of that.

Eleven decades ago, however, our counterparts lacked 24/7 news and were not distracted by the dopamine-dispensers of our ridiculous, addictive phones. Yet their newspapers provided quick reporting of a looming, then unfolding disaster in Europe. So it continues to surprise me how otherwise sensitive and perceptive people were surprised by the outbreak of war.

Glancing though an entry at the National Archives, I ran across the very moment when a famous quotation by Britain’s Foreign Secretary marked the end of The Belle Époque:

On 3 August 1914 Sir Edward Grey made his famous quote: ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime’. He was speaking to his friend, the journalist John Alfred Spender, editor of the Westminster Gazette, in Grey’s room in the Foreign Office. Looking out from his window, across St. James’ Park, it was dusk and the first of the gas lights along the Mall were being lit. The next day Grey would have to face the Cabinet and to persuade them that the time had now come to declare war on Germany.

This powerful image, one that haunted Churchill enough to appear in his writing, captures the mood of late 1914 very well. I do wonder, however, if our era of seemingly endless gloom had a time of light and laughter as its counterpoint? I turn to experts on nostalgia for that. The abrupt rupture 9/11 made in our lives might provide one such contrast, but that tragedy is older now than all my students.

These seem to me glum thoughts in January. Even if foolishly, let’s instead look forward to Spring and the potential for change. It’s always present, perhaps in hiding, but those lamps never go out. Maybe a new Belle Époque lies ahead for us?

If you have a word or metaphor you enjoy, send them by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Image: from Wikipedia, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Bal du moulin de la Galette), 1876, Musée d’Orsay

Metaphor of the Month! Haywire

Dr. Mike Kerckhove, in our Math Department, nominated this term, since he knows I bale hay (by hand!) on our farm. As a native Midwesterner, he also wondered if the term comes from what happens when a mechanical hay-baler gets out of synch. Baling wire being what it is, I can imagine the mess.

I’ve long used the expressions “gone haywire” to describe any mechanical or electronic device that starts acting oddly. To me the metaphor signified not quite a complete breakdown but rather a malfunction.

The OED’s new format online includes a factsheet showing earliest known use in the early 1900s, corresponding to the appearance of stationary, belt-driven equipment on farms; the modern balers I have considered buying run off a power shaft on the back of a tractor.

By the 1920s, our current usage appeared common. A few others appeared, such as “a hay-wire outfit” cited by the OED for a poorly run, slapdash operation. That idea persists with the expression for hasty repairs, “held together with chewing gum and baling wire.”

One day I will own a mechanical baler, instead of baling about 10 bales (during a good year) in a wooden baling box and then binding the bales with plastic cord. That simple operation never goes haywire, but we use about 30 bales of hay or straw, mostly for animal bedding, in a typical year. Once I have a machine to pull behind the tractor, I’ll know first-hand how things do indeed go haywire. Dr. Kerckhove, you are invited to help me with the baling.

Have a word or metaphor worth our time? If so, let me know by e-mailing me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Image source from the Creative-Commons guru Cory Doctorow, via Flickr.

Metaphor of the Month! Moral Hazard

I try to sneak in words from the world of business here, and today’s metaphor comes just in time, as two banks associated with the Tech Sector have collapsed, or come so close that their assets got seized by the Federal Government.

Today, on my way in to work, I heard the term “moral hazard” associated with banking. I’d more likely consider it a term for a lost weekend in Las Vegas or New Orleans.

Investopedia provides a succinct definition for our metaphor that maps well onto what has happened recently, namely the “risk that a party has not entered into a contract in good faith or has provided misleading information about its assets, liabilities, or credit capacity. In addition, moral hazard also may mean a party has an incentive to take unusual risks in a desperate attempt to earn a profit before the contract settles.”

The entry continues to discuss the lack of consequences faced by the party who breaks faith and, let’s be honest, betrays the others involved. In the cases of our banks, they appear to have either taken on risky investments or engaged in other practices that put depositors’ money at risk.

It’s reprehensible to me, but then my financial advisor ranks me as a moderately conservative investor. I try to keep risks low, at least long-term ones.

So to me, playing with others’ money is immoral. The OED provides an 1875 date of first year, and it emphasizes an outcome rather than initial behavior. The entry cites the insurance industry, where “the effect of insurance on the likelihood of the insured event occurring; the lack of incentive to avoid risk,” which reminds me of the FDIC’s coverage, in theory, of only the first $250,000 in an account. The entry cites a recent example of usage, “Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute, a free market think tank, argues that a big financial bail-out would risk creating perverse economic incentives or moral hazard.”

Will unlimited bail-outs of wealthy investors’ deposits create incentives for more risk-taking by new banks? Perhaps.

I’m not Cato-Institute material. I’d prefer we regulate banks tightly and punish more bankers with felony time, not punish the depositors (however wealthy). To me, these courses of action guarantee a moral outcome. Only one banker was jailed after the 2008 financial crisis. Fining banks did not stop what we are seeing today.

Nominate a word students need to learn by e-mailing me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Image courtesy of Nick Papakyriazis at Flickr.