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The idea of a metaphor is to give you a more clear and ideally accurate understanding of something.

• TuringTest 9y ago
  But doing that doesn't necessarily involves calculating a precise measurement of the ratios present in the metaphor. Human language conveys lots of meaning by evocative imaginery, too, so not all expressions should be taken literally. Sometimes, taking the literal meaning might even distort the original message, like in this case changing the mosquito with a goose - if that had been the original expression, everyone would have wondered why the author chose such strange comparison.
  • code_duck 9y ago
    The calculations were necessary to determine and illustrate how inaccurate and distorting the original version is. The size of the animals is being used to show sizes of companies, since everyone is generally familiar with the sizes of mosquitoes, geese and elephants. But the difference between a mosquito and a goose is drastic… handily, someone else already did the calculations to show how drastic. So, it is a bad original metaphor and it is misleading. I was going to suggest that a good author would then to choose an animal about the size of the goose that has the same characteristics as a mosquito, but why? A mosquito is considered annoying, harmful and parasitic – if it was the size of the goose, things to be very different. It would be considered a terrifying predator of the jungle. So I don't see what qualities of a mosquito would make it an appropriate choice, and this is what makes the metaphor worth correcting. It is somewhat of a slur against DDG, more so since the numbers are so dramatically inaccurate. A good animal choose would be a… duck?