{"id":2073,"date":"2015-04-28T12:28:28","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T20:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/?p=2073"},"modified":"2015-04-28T12:28:28","modified_gmt":"2015-04-28T20:28:28","slug":"eulogy-for-a-metaphor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/eulogy-for-a-metaphor\/","title":{"rendered":"Eulogy for a Metaphor"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"TweetButton_button\" style=\"float: right; margin-left: 10px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  data-url=\"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/eulogy-for-a-metaphor\/\" data-text=\"Eulogy for a Metaphor\" data-lang=\"en\">Tweet<\/a><br \/>\n<script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,\"script\",\"twitter-wjs\");<\/script><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I was taken aback today when I learned that the term &#8220;Bullshit&#8221; is a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dead_metaphor\" target=\"_blank\">dead metaphor<\/a>. \u00a0But it seems that the term&#8217;s claim on life as a metaphor had always been tenuous at best, and so it&#8217;s death as such was iminent. \u00a0You see, a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Metaphor\" target=\"_blank\">metaphor<\/a> is a figure of speech that identifies something as being the same as some unrelated thing for rhetorical effect. \u00a0So to use &#8220;bullshit&#8221; as a metaphor, for example, of a person&#8217;s untruthful arguments or assertions one would be comparing those assertions to the literal end product of a bull&#8217;s digestive tract. \u00a0The comparison does not hold up to the actual physical similarites.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/1st-quarter-2014-gdp-estimate-revised\/bovine-excrement-meter\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1048\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1048\" src=\"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/bovine-excrement-meter.gif\" alt=\"bovine excrement meter\" width=\"238\" height=\"241\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Perhaps then, &#8220;Bullshit&#8221; might \u00a0have been better suited to life as a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Simile\" target=\"_blank\">simile <\/a>rather than a metaphor. \u00a0In this regard one could pronounce their adversary&#8217;s statements as not literally bovine excrement, rather that they were only similar to it. \u00a0From that point the observer&#8217;s \u00a0imagination is employed to distinguish exactly what those similarities might be &#8211; \u00a0Color? Odor? Quantity? \u00a0Point of origin?<\/p>\n<p>I will not contradict the contention that &#8220;bullshit&#8221; is a dead metaphor. \u00a0I see no reason to. \u00a0Alas, poor Bullshit, we barely knew ye. \u00a0You died quietly, and your death went unremarked upon. \u00a0Yet no metaphor truly dies that lives on as an <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Expletive\" target=\"_blank\">expletive<\/a>. \u00a0And as such, shall you live ever after in our hearts and in our language. \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/?p=607\" target=\"_blank\">And\u00a0I&#8217;m quite content to retain the term soley for use as an expletive<\/a>, though others may lament it&#8217;s loss as a useful metaphor for this blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tweet &nbsp; I was taken aback today when I learned that the term &#8220;Bullshit&#8221; is a dead metaphor. \u00a0But it seems that the term&#8217;s claim on life as a metaphor had always been tenuous at best, and so it&#8217;s death as such was iminent. \u00a0You&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2073"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2076,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions\/2076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}