Invasion of the Metaphors

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Invasion of the Metaphors

On the Orwellian telescreen a woman recently returned from Nepal said that the country looked like a war zone.

One never hears young men and women returning from any of this nation’s many undeclared wars saying that the ditches and gullies and rocky slopes where they fought to stay alive looked like an earthquake.

What, exactly, is a “war zone?” Is that just a two-syllable way of saying “war?” Just say “war.”

Congress won’t, of course.

In the neverending quest (how’s that for filler language?) for metaphors, “war zone” appears to be most fashionable just now. Earthquakes, storms, messy rooms, the litter left after a football game, leaf-fall after a storm – all are grist for the war zone mill (mixing several tired metaphors).

If a family is killed by a building collapsing in an earthquake, we do their memory no service by saying that the wreckage looks like a war zone. It doesn’t. It looks like the result of an earthquake, and that is because it is the result of an earthquake. It isn’t like anything else; it is itself.

A common metaphor along our stormy coast is to allege that trees snapped like matchsticks. Does anyone ever maintain that matchsticks snap like trees? Does anyone sit around snapping matchsticks anyway? No one ever says that trees snap like cheap plastic cigarette lighters, which would be slightly more logical because almost no one uses matches anymore. Anyone wanting a box of matches might be advised to check the newsstand, over by the pay telephones, in the railroad station down the street past the Packard dealership.

Our part of the planet is subject to strong winds because of tornadoes, hurricanes, and thunderstorms, and sometimes these winds break trees. We should state this simple fact, that winds break trees, and not pull from a rag-bag (another tired metaphor – what is a rag-bag?) any of a collection of old metaphors that occupy space and obscure clarity of thought.

If, in the same storm, the winds toss your 1956 Plymouth about, they toss it about like a 1956 Plymouth, not like a toy, because a 1956 Plymouth is not a toy. It is itself. The toy comparison has been done, over and over and over, for decades. Now if you say that your 1956 Plymouth was tossed about like a referee after a close soccer match between Sheffield and Arsenal you’d be making a fresh and praiseworthy metaphor. Even so, it would probably be better to state the plain, clear fact that strong winds blew your 1956 Plymouth about, especially when making your case to the insurance company: “Like a toy, eh? Okay, here’s a voucher good for a Fisher-Price replacement, with a Ken and Barbie deductible…”

In East Texas another tired metaphor is to say of a child’s room not that it needs tidying up but that it looks like a hurricane hit it:

“But Dad, my room’s not here. The whole house is gone!”

“Exactly right, my son. Your room looks like a hurricane hit it.”

Sometimes reality is not subject to a metaphor at all.

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