Re: Metaphors or Figures of Speech?

Keith Cowan (cowan@pci.on.ca)
Fri, 23 Dec 1994 08:47:41 -0500 (EST)

> So from these instance and many others, do we conclude that American
> (not English-speaking!) life is governed by sports metaphors? Or that
> thinking about American life is governed by the sports metaphor? Or
> that Americans tend to view life as a sporting event?
> Michael Ayers
> mbayers@mmm.com

The use of metaphors is sometimes part of NLP in that we need to appeal
to the various types of people:
visual - "we must focus on our goals"
audio - "start with a bang"
smell - "someting fishy going on here"
motion - most of the sports and war metaphors
touch - "we're getting the feel of it now"

Naturally, such metaphors do not translate well into other languages, but
the underlying idea of NLP is that all the senses need to be covered in
human communication if we are to reach the differing types of people.

Our president talks about hitting the wall as the ultimate effect of not
staying abreast of the industry, and one can visualize flying low and trying
to gain enough height through our airspeed to clear the top of the wall. Just
have to move fast enough to clear it...and so on.

Joyeaux Noel Frohliche Wienachten Felise Navidad Merry Christmas

-- 
Keith Cowan       Phone: (416)565-6253           FAX: (905)764-9604
Toronto        Internet: cowan@pci.on.ca  Compuserve: 72212,51