> I suspect that metaphors are the tools of cargo cults Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but are you using some much more restrictive definition of 'metaphor'? F

> I suspect that metaphors are the tools of cargo cults Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but are you using some much more restrictive definition of 'metaphor'? For example, as far as I can see, one can't escape metaphor because they're deeply embedded in the very language you're using right now. The most basic metaphors are ones that refer to the body or the physical world. Jar [1] originally refers to a 'screeching sound'. Understand probably from the literal sense to 'stand between' [2]. Compute derives from 'com' (together) + 'putare' (reckon, settle an account) [3]; the latter root originally comes from Indo-European 'to prune'. Almost all vocabulary is in fact a form of extended metaphor; in fact, it cannot be any other way, because to describe a new thing requires one to compare and contrast it to existing things. You yourself are making a metaphor when you say that an analogy has to 'at least rhyme' — a metaphor for poetic sound similarity to stand for a sort of logical similarity. The distinction between an analogy, where one explicitly calls out the comparison ('like', 'as'), and a metaphor, where the relationship is taken implicitly, is much blurrier than it seems. All our language and thinking is saturated with metaphors at every single level, to the point where they seem to be taken for granted and disappear. IMO, the problem is not metaphors themselves, which are unavoidable; it's picking wrong metaphors (which is really using the wrong language) that lead us astray. [1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/jar https://www.etymonline.com/word/jar [2] https://www.etymonline.com/word/understand https://www.etymonline.com/word/understand [3] https://www.etymonline.com/word/compute https://www.etymonline.com/word/compute