Hyperbolic Metaphor Drives Tourists Away From London

Before assessing the damage done, we'll begin by defining the metaphor: n. "To transfer, to carry. A figure of speech in which a name or descriptive term is transferred to some object different from but analogous to that which is properly applicable. Oxford English Dictionary.

Translation: A metaphor is a comparison, not actual, of one thing to another. Simply, you are saying that the first thing is the second thing. A successful metaphor carries new meaning to the first thing. Again, the thing compared puts the original in a new light, which may be dramatic, ironic, humorous...quite often in a rhetorical way. If you accomplish the task successfully, the person experiencing your metaphor gains a "fresh" view of the first thing--a great outcome in any attempt to communicate a thought.

There are other figures of speech related to metaphors used to identify the comparisons we make in order to "carry" meaning more powerfully, humorously, etc. We've already pointed out "mediocre" metaphors as well as "silly" similes--our own, nonacademic approach. Click here for a more academic look at other figures of speech related to metaphor such as synecdoche, metonymy, and still other figures of speech.

Back to our approach. A mediocre metaphor is one which has descended into the realm of cliché: a word or phrase that has become overly familiar or commonplace; a hackneyed or trite word or phrase. H. W. Fowler referred to these as "dead" metaphors, or "unsustained" metaphors.

Just as unacceptable is the "hyperbolic" metaphor, often a form of cliché. Hyperbole: "Excessive, extravagant exaggeration." Merriam Webster Dictionary. Fowler called these "self-conscious" or "overdone" metaphors. A recent travel article in the Los Angeles Times by Jane Engle offers a good example of a hyperbolic"or overdone metaphor.

In the metaphor, Engle, attempting humor, nevertheless poses you and me, the reader, as tourists who will identify with young Oliver Twist, the abused young boy of the streets in Charles Dickens' famous novel Oliver Twist, "(We) may feel as destitute as the young Oliver Twist." Furthermore, "(We) won't need Fagin's band of pickpockets to empty (our) wallets" because London's hoteliers, restaurateurs, and their like are well disposed to pull off the heist themselves. "Fagin" was the the villainous old man who trained kids to be pickpockets and pilferers in tough, 19th century London, a town which experienced outbreaks of Cholera because of drinking water tainted with sewage from the Thames River.

(Note: Sir Joseph Bazalgette, acting as the Chief Engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works, eventually solved the problem.)

Metaphors should be more carefully used. Ms. Engle, herself, offers the real culprit for London's high prices in her piece when she is thinking more of market economics than of literature. It is an exchange rate explanation, hardly Dickensian:

"For their predicament, tourists can mostly blame the woeful U.S. dollar, which, after sliding 14% in two years, was recently worth half a British pound. Note: when the market closed today, 8 Jan 2008, the dollar was valued at .0568 to the pound. This is an uncomfortable exchange rate for anyone using dollars, but hardly a condition that resembles being robbed by merciless London merchants.

We therefore issue Ms. Engle a grammar ticket for "excessive exaggeration" in the form of a metaphor.

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