Talk:Dead metaphor

Sages
I have slightly edited what Andrew Goatly, a world expert on Metaphor has said. I do think my version is clearer: "Dictionaries are the burial grounds of dead metaphors; the dormitories for sleeping metaphors; the park benches for tired metaphors". (from Sages, 26/10/04)
 * Thanks for doing that. That quote, if it belongs anywhere, should be in the articles for dictionary or metaphor, but not here.  -Willmcw 02:38, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Article is ridiculous
These examples are not even metaphors, let alone dead metaphors. Most of them are archaisms, which is an entirely different issue. I wish to overhaul the article. Markbenjamin (talk) 07:07, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Examples
I don't see how understanding and mantel are dead metaphors. I'm not saying they aren't, just that as a lay reader I don't get the example. Kyle J Moore 18:22, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree i have no idea how some of the examples listed are dead metaphors. someone should clarify   Lue3378 09:27, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Go to the Metaphor page and read that...example: "understand" = to stand underneath. "Mantel" i'm not so sure


 * A mantle, or Mantel in German, is a hooded cloak, which is a garment nobody wears anymore. A fireplace "mantel" was originally a "hood", a fixture that stuck out into the room to catch smoke. We still have "vent hoods" or "smoke hoods" over cooktops in large kitchens, and in laboratories. It's a dead metaphor because nobody associates the fireplace fixture, "mantel", with the garment, "mantle" ... all the more so because a modern fireplace "mantel" is no longer a smoke hood. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.146.9.94 (talk) 06:49, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

How is "flared jeans" a metaphor? Maybe the word flare used in this sense is a dead metaphor by itself, but as applied to jeans it is just a standard meaning of the word. MattCoon (talk) 13:34, 2 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Fishing for compliments, seeds of doubt, and catch her name are not dead metaphors, they are simply metaphors.
 * The world wide web is literal.
 * Branches of government and kidney beans are just terms based on what they resemble.


 * "A regular metaphor is like "fishing for compliments", where you are not literally fishing, but are enacting something that metaphorically represents real "fishing".
 * A dead metaphor is like "pilot", which, according to the article, referenced a rudder, which it no longer represents.


 * Nikandros (talk) 01:07, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand the article
The article is too short and does not explain enough. After reading it, I feel none the wiser regarding what a "dead metaphor" is. More explanation, please. SpectrumDT 18:11, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you and all these other people. The examples make the brief article even less coherent. How is 'kidney bean' a dead metaphor? Is a kidney bean not the shape and color of a kidney? How is that "dead"? Almost all these examples seem to be describe still common uses. Promontoriumispromontorium (talk) 09:49, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Agree with SpectrumDT, lo these (nearly) 5 years on. I expected to perhaps find an explanation of "uppercase" or "dial" (as in telephones, TVs) - unsure whether these are dead metaphors or not. Kidney beans? How is that a dead metaphor? -- Gyrofrog  (talk) 16:37, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Another example of what I'm told is a dead metaphor, again involving the telephone: we still say "the phone is ringing," though most telephones (and certainly all mobile phones) do not have actual bells. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 05:15, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

The examples should be Wikified
The examples should be Wikified, also I fail to see how the whole section on horse metaphors apply as most are quite obvious in origin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.190.34.219 (talk) 10:15, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

causes
I would add to the first sentence, "… or they refer to an obsolete technology or forgotten custom." Comment? —Tamfang (talk) 00:46, 14 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Seeing no objection … —Tamfang (talk) 23:48, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Is "to go belly up" really a dead metaphor?
"To go belly up" (used for example to describe businesses which go bankrupt) immediately conjures in my mind the image of a dead fish, floating belly up. Is this not how most people picture it, and if so, wouldn't this metaphor be very much alive? The andf (talk) 15:57, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

mondegreens
Maybe something on homophones? I have in mind tow the line (for toe, i.e. to stand in formation) and straightjacket and straight-laced (for strait, an archaic word for narrow or tight). —Tamfang (talk) 00:00, 22 October 2023 (UTC)