I’ve always understood the Swiss Army knife metaphor as it describes something to be generally useful, multi-purpose, and adaptable. Recently when reading an article, a commenter used this metaphor 1. It’s easy to take my modest proposal to an absurd extreme: either you write code all day, or you become completely non-technical and never touch … Read more
I’m translating a book and the author has written down a saying that can be translated literally as “If you want to hit a dog you can easily/quickly find a stick” Like, if I wanted to hit a dog, finding something with which to hit it will be easy as I’ll be looking for anything … Read more
I’m trying to understand the meaning of a quote from the 1981 science fiction novel ‘God Emperor of Dune‘ by Frank Herbert. The quote is; If it falls outside your yardsticks, then you are engaged with intelligence, not with automation. The quote can be found with a little more context here. What does the speaker … Read more
What came first, concrete as a way to express a solid thought, or concrete as a solid building material? And what I am really getting at is, prior to the invention of concrete as a building material, was there a different metaphor used to express the idea of a concrete thought? Answer The answer can … Read more
Ice Cube’s intro in his newest album starts with Yeah, you know me. Super OG. Always down to take a knee. What does this last sentence mean? He won‘t literally take someone’s knee I guess.. Answer Semantically The meaning of “take a knee” is very similar to “take a seat”. phrase formal If you take … Read more
What is meant by "mushroom grandeur" in this context? Is it metaphorically means instant, like how mushroom blooms? "What do you think of that?” asked his expressive little eyes, when something cruel in "mushroom" grandeur or crude style passed by. –Ceylon, the Paradise of Adam By Caroline Corner, pg 45- Answer A little more context … Read more
In More than Cool Reason book by George Lakoff, I came up with the phrase “Getting somewhere with one’s life” which I don’t know the meaning. Here is the whole sentence: First, without such a conceptual metaphor as LIFE IS A JOURNEY, there would be no conceptual unity to such ordinary conventional expressions as “making … Read more
My question specifically relates to learning a new skill. Which could be used in the following example: An aspiring athlete trains for an hour each day without feeling like she is making much progress. However…. One analogy that comes to mind, although not terribly elegant, is that if one adds a sufficient number of water … Read more
First, I am not entirely sure this can be viewed as a metaphor, but I feel this is an edge case, because like the “Absolute” it refers to a quality of God, but “Infinite” even if it’s a quality of God, sounds sketchy at best. What do you think? Answer I’ll play devil’s advocate and … Read more
What is the opposite of “granular” in the following usage? granularity The level of detail considered in a model or decision making process. The greater the granularity, the deeper the level of detail. Granularity is usually used to characterize the scale or level of detail in a set of data. http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/granularity.html I’m looking for something … Read more
