Metaphor, metaphoric, metaphorical, metaphorically

The trusty dictionary tells us that a metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing, is used to designate another thing, but it also creates a vehicle for implicit interpretation or meta-analysis.

That's a little strange if you think critically about it. Is this vehicle always present even in the base words? It seems it would have to be. The base word summer is implicitly warm but designates a time of year as a definition, so we do have a form of meta-interaction occurring in the mind with many words and a configuration or metamorphosis occurring in your brain at the core of what words trigger.

Someone once said, all words are metaphorical as they are just representations and the metaphorical representations are what adds flavor.

Here we go again, what designates the word's creative meaning? The vehicle? If all metaphors are created by words, and all metaphors are words, who is doing the behind the veil metamorphous? Is that what Morpheus does?  As far as we know, words are a form of lexeme code similar to what computers use, only humans are much more advanced in perception speed and processing.

Every word in the universe must be tagged by OZ central somehow and designated an implication or a meaning that is learned by a system that confabulates the structure. These structures are handed down over the centuries and are modified as new confabulations arrive.

The fact that something is designated into the fantasy world gives it power. It can now be pointed out and become stigmatized occasionally allowing a route of knowledge to form.

Metaphor construction is based on what is called the tenor which is the main base subject. An example is the phrase, "join the ranks" where "ranks" is the main base. In the phrase, "the ranks died", dying is the base tenor. In comparison to war, what ordinarily happens to the ranks was more like being penetrated by a bullet, stabbed with a knife, or suffering a severe concussion from blast particles or force in a violent display of emotion expressed.

There is also a principle called a vehicle which designates all the words and concepts the metaphor expresses. For this reason it seems, metaphors are categorized mostly in grouped words.

Metaphors are also most often used with verbs that equate them, plus they also have dimension as mentioned above, in the form of moving the energy around and back onto to the tenor. In reality, they are much more complicated, and many people will attempt to unlock their codes in a myriad of ways.

Because of these anomalies, the use of them should be carefully thought through as it would be easy to misdirect the reader or listener. In our current environment, the use of metaphors is both bad and good in usage and most people cannot tell the difference, yet they do feel something.

Metaphorical use of words is literally an art form, and brings much power to the expresser. They also can mislead people by covering up the essence of things which in most cases if the observer knew the truth, they would not adapt the metaphorical connotations that destroy their meaning, and instead view them as nonsense.

A perfect example is the mating of words into one word to cut short the tenor and vehicle relationship, such as the word ceasefire.

Here, we have the tenor fire mating with the verb mutation of cease. In the real world, everyone should ceasefire, this is not an argument. Morphing words will create arguments within themselves. It could be said that the mutation of words such as cease and fire would lead to believe that all metaphors have a sexual center or source, and someone has finally figured out a way for words to have sex with each other.

When words or a word expresses feelings without telling you what it is, this is what is normally considered an emotion, although since the keyboard is rather large and complicated, there is a full array of techniques to interpret them, such as neuro-linguistics which states:

When looking at metaphors more deeply, one must wonder why emotions, and the moving of energy around in words has not been studied to present many more comparative theories, as most of this realm has been void before the time of Freud, and since then, infiltrated by new age pocket changers and debaters at every corner.

There are many metaphors that work in favor of the receiver and sender for interpretation. These are expressions that sooth the soul and have simplicity at their core, such as "home at last" where home is the base tenor, and at is the preposition placed in advance, and last serves as the part of the vehicle that stops which represents the being or coming home. The funny thing is, it seems you are traveling backwards. There are those who would argue that the word last is the tenor, but if the observer never reached home, what possible meaning could it have?

When the observer experiences this thought, a stigma occurs that releases hormones and other goodies once the experience is felt. Strangely, this does not fully occur until the observer walks in the door. This line of thinking leads to wonder if our physical world plays a partial role sometimes more, sometimes less, in the perception and [what is actually felt] when words are processed.

So, in the phrase, "home at last" the vehicle did not stop at the end of the word, it stopped on top of the word home, a back flip of power. But when you say it, it feels almost opposite doesn't it?

As you can feel, words are tricky mechanisms you are supposed to control and you use them as you have no choice. Words allow humans to communicate which is their great value, but without interaction with other humans, words are useless. In this respect, words are more like tools of knowledge to move something forward, and it may be that the moving forward of this knowledge is the main function and purpose of all words, and that is the main function of humans also, as the knowledge does continue in some form.

With words, humans can create their own fantasy, or they can assimilate facts and see through the veil of truth, and there is no limit to either. Shakespeare once said, "All the world's a stage". He was right in the fact that the world is a fantasy of creation, that is to say, everything we create, can only tell us how imperfect we are.

Humans are programmed with words according to at least one element that of meta-physical power. Shouldn't there be some more elements here psychoanalytically? We know that the word meta- means to carry forward a transformation. The key to understanding words may be in knowing where the transformation control is occurring, in the head, or are there some word languages used with a physical element to alter the metamorphosis that occurs in the brain?

The control of perception has been carried forward no doubt. Controllers always leave clues. Let's take a gander at history.

According to excavation research that was occurring in Israel in the Caesarea area, the Romans developed their circus for chariot games using a meta, spina, and an obelisk layout. Here is how one is described that has been found.

The word metae is used to designate two conical columns at the end of the spina, and the obelisk was at the other end in the form similar to the one near Washington D.C. Here, the chariots would run around in circles chasing each other. More fantasy?

You must admit that knowledge has been suppressed for centuries. Those with knowledge who must keep their secrets most often create or conspire metaphysical stigmas that remind them of their knowledge without revealing their true intent, a form of masquerade for their power.

There could be a correlation here to the reasoning for meta becoming plural, and the e-motion expression in the mind about words and the combination of them in relation to plurality. If there are two core ways (matae) to morpheus thoughts, they should be designated. Here are some examples for study.

The derivatives mentions the word, carry forward as the principle function of metaphor, which could be perceived as transference or interaction.

"The sun soaked the shore with compassion as the waves retreated for another mighty roar."

Here, the metaphor group, "sun soaked the shore with compassion" is more spiritual in essence as versus physical, while the "mighty roar" is more physical in essence, let's try another.

"Little did they know, the front lines were the end of the atrophy line."

Here, we have the group, "front lines" which is associated with physical force, and we have the group, "end of the atrophy line" which refers to something spiritual in the mind.

Let's see if we can remove all physical relations in a metaphorical sense.

"The spirit of desire turned red."

In this group, "spirit of desire" we have a physical quagmire for e-motion or anything that moves. This phrase seems to float in space and require imagination to work blocking implication until the mind has perceived what red stands for, yet it still would classify as a metaphor with a tenor and vehicle.

Here, the word spirit is the vehicle and the tenor base is the word desire as desire is the subject. This phrase also might be classified as a bad metaphor simply because it requires the mind to create something outside the word image implanted, yet this phrase if spoken in the right circumstances could mean literally anything imaginable while at the same time, be clearly understood by the reception.

In an example, if a couple of people dressed as Santa Clause robbed a bank with machine guns and killed everyone, and the man said, "The spirit of desire turned red".

So metaphors are not always directly related to physicality alone, they also hold a spiritual essence it seems in both direct and indirect combinations. The direct ones are immediately felt, and the indirect ones are felt subtly by activation of other codes.

This may account for all the theories related to organizing them into such as principles, disciplines, techniques, explanations, and then plugging in all the obvious emotional words such as fear or anger into categories under headings that really confuse people. Even though words and feelings seem like tools, it is more like tip toeing through the tulips.

Below are a couple of metamorphoses from another website here.

Confidence: If I am confident, then you can be confident.
Repetition: If something happens often enough, I will eventually be persuaded.

The first one mentioned is very misleading and is a forceful persuasion [violation of free will] technique used by many marketers online as they teach others how to thrive from the financial element of the Internet. The second one is more confusing and can be interpreted many ways. An example is, TV has now been marketed for over 50 years and I'm still not persuaded, but maybe you are. I will never be eventually persuaded by its main purpose as more time passes, persuasion is decreased. So, the interpretation is intended to be the metaphorical vehicle for the last word.

Check out the website above by Mark Devon, from Harvard who has collected and sorted much information, and sells a book about emotions, of which I have not reviewed efficiently as of yet.

Understanding how words persuade us would be an integral part of how metaphors works. These words can also be used to persuade people into reactions with drive intentions, but just how the rapport line is strung will control the observer in the overall perception and stigma balance.

The level of control or manipulation implemented is a way to cross over many emotions, block emotions, and rearrange them similar to a football game. Most colleges and schools across the nation name their teams in a metaphorical way by taking the name of a tribe of people and associating it with violence because that's what they remember from history class, when the reality is, these names are only names of indigenous people who had nothing to do with violence until we came along.

Below is a list of team names and some gibberish that represent a bad metaphorical use as the implication is mutated leaving the tenor subject to the ironic aversion. The vehicle is war.

Here's some war gibberish everyone should be familiar with that includes navigational information. This is where the vehicle is created sitting on top of the sentence, phrase, or word used, and since it is a vehicle, an association is made to a physical element, rather than a spiritual one.

These are just a few examples of how we all fall into the metaphor rabbit hole. This brings back the phrase, "The spirit of desire turned red". If this were true in every sense, we could have a war on desire, could we not? We could even have a war against red, a war on the spirit, a war on underwear, a war on flying space rock, a war on grandma's apron, even a war on life. Maybe that is the base meaning of war, as the vehicle has been placed on top of life and is hidden.

The non-specifics relate to the mutated metamorphoses carried forward for you that are accepted by the observer. What is a great way to get acceptance? Create a game around all the words you want to implement into society, such as pointy ball, or metaphorically known as football. Do you see the physical implications? These physical and mutated implications are dangerous in the mind, and create impulsive reactions that work in the favor of entrepreneurs of desire attuned to self service.

They somehow get humans to carry forward in their drive intentions instead of the mind being capable of morphing the true intention hidden within the messages received. The mind instead goes into lock down, and does not carry forward the true meaning of the vehicle intended. It would not do society harm to emphasize a more balanced confabulation removing metaphors that do more harm than good from the media, as they should be responsible to the people instead of the government and corporations.

People in America know more about what a powder keg is not, than they know about another country even existing. They often do not even know where they themselves are located on earth, as earth seems hidden by concrete where most people actually live. Our environment then, has a metaphorical element affecting it in our minds related to physicality change, as in progression or a comstruct away from reality.

Why use the metaphor nation, when you know people live there. It's not a nation, it's people. People surely want words that give them spiritual meaning without having to kill your son or daughter to get it, and without being told that when you die, you will live.

Another clear attempt to mutate the metae and eat grandma.

There are many spiritual relationships between words, here are some examples.

These representations do not necessarily have a physical aspect, as their connection is felt spiritually. So remember when people [humans] talk about blockades, their removing all spiritual elements in the metaphor. They remove them in the attempt to hide evil, as the spirit would whip their arse.

Mohammed Ali once said, "Fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee". This is the perfect union of metaphors for understanding the difference between the spiritual world and the physical world. He was telling the truth in a very special way by implying specific feelings on both sides of the fence using nature as a guide for both.

This may not have been a fence between the opponent, but a fence inside his own mind that knew how spiritual metaphors instill knowledge and physical metaphors instill emotion.

To end this analysis, it almost seems like Mohammed was telling his opponent there were two of Mohammed and he would have to fight both of them. Someone who would hurt you and teach you at the same time. That is probably what the opponent saw right after he hit them right between their eyes... metaphorically speaking?

R. Mark Sink  2007/9/18
Updated: 2007/9/24