I am looking for examinations of the Internet and World Wide Web that use the structure and/or history of the city as a metaphor.
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posted by 0bvious
on Apr 12, 2013 -
9 answers
Hello dear Mefites. I am looking to buy or borrow this very-hard-to-find book:
Ramacciotti, Sandra and Rodil, María Victoria (2006): Economics: Glossary of Metaphorical Usage - Glosario Económico - Financiero Uso Metafórico de Voces. Buenos Aires: Editorial Quorum.
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posted by ipsative
on Mar 11, 2013 -
9 answers
I came across the phrase "in his/her/my wheelhouse" last year for the first time and was shocked to learn there's an entire genre of writing with its own set of metaphors that I know nothing about. Sportswriting!
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posted by spamandkimchi
on Jan 20, 2013 -
38 answers
I'm looking for examples of visual timelines in movies, video games, or fiction. Scenes where a span of time is represented metaphorically, preferably as a physical object, diagram, or action. A good example is
this scene from
Me and You and Everyone We Know in which two characters use a street as a visual metaphor for their potential relationship.
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posted by oulipian
on Nov 13, 2012 -
17 answers
I have never used "Jew" as a verb. I no longer "welsh" on debts, and I haven't used "gyp" since I was educated on the racism behind that term. Do I also need to stop using terms like "Mexican standoff", "Chinese firedrill", and "kabuki dance" if I intentionally don't want to create offense to a reasonable person in another cultural group? I grew up in very homogeneous
territory and so I'm still learning. Please school me.
I love words, I love colorful language and descriptors, but I don't want to be an ass. Words matter.
posted by availablelight
on Sep 17, 2012 -
58 answers
Was reading about microchips that are designed to allow a few mistakes (known as '
Sloppy Chips'), and pondering equivalent kinds of 'coding' errors and entropy in biological systems. Can a fair comparison be made between the two?
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posted by 0bvious
on Jun 5, 2012 -
4 answers
Please help me find a short story or poem that functions as an extended metaphor. Preferably one as obscure or ambiguous in its meaning as possible.
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posted by leibniz
on Nov 21, 2011 -
22 answers
What are some interesting, unique, different and effective ways to teach figurative language to high schoolers?
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posted by guster4lovers
on Oct 3, 2011 -
12 answers
What is the poem about branches of a tree, i.e. choices in life, withering when the narrator can't bring herself to pick one?
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posted by ramenopres
on Jul 18, 2011 -
4 answers
Can anyone tell me, well, ANYTHING about a person (hypothetically) standing on the sun?
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posted by argonauta
on May 16, 2011 -
44 answers
Do you know of any written stories, fiction or otherwise (but not movies) with language usage similar to that in
Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome or
The Dark Knight Returns? Example of what I'm looking for are after the break.
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posted by Brandon Blatcher
on Mar 23, 2011 -
30 answers
"You mean Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?" I'm looking for a modern equivalent to this phrase, meant to express the youthful ignorance of history, even very significant history. Especially when such ignorance surfaces in a way that's jarring to folks who were there.
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posted by Myself
on Jan 29, 2011 -
88 answers
Help me understand the metaphor behind the "monster" in Danny Boyle's "Sunshine." I found this a stunning film, but the appearance of the "zombie" took my experience off-track and genre-shifted it. I understand that this was a significant element, but why? And what does it signify (for you?) I watched it years ago, and it's still bugging me!
posted by andreinla
on Oct 12, 2010 -
23 answers
"Damn the torpedoes!"... without all the torpedoes? Help me find the right metaphor.
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posted by eleyna
on Aug 11, 2010 -
37 answers
I'm trying to write something about how "once I started researching this project, I realized how the subject was infinite: One revelation opened up a new line of research, which opened up another line of research..." What is the metaphor/simile I'm thinking of?
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posted by pipti
on May 17, 2010 -
32 answers
I'm a big fan of Art items that use technology as decoration. I found
this wonderful album cover, and I was wondering if anyone knows of anything of that sort.
It can be anything that uses Electronics, Technology or Telecommunication as a metaphor, decoration or usable out of context.
Thank you!
posted by lipsum
on Feb 14, 2010 -
10 answers
If could compare the Web to something tangible what would it be? Do you find any metaphor suiting the Web as it is, as it developed and what it might become?
posted by fifigyuri
on Jul 20, 2009 -
18 answers
Is there a term for the particular type of metaphor that Martin Luther King Jr. used repeatedly in his "I Have a Dream" speech?
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posted by Janey Complainy
on Jan 15, 2009 -
4 answers
When you're going against traffic, is that bad?
Of course not, even though it sounds bad. And if you're going
with traffic -- that's bad, even though it sounds good.
Confusion is built in.
Here's the QX: Years ago I heard a perfect phrase for this. Something like "If we leave at three, traffic's our friend." Maybe that was it. But has anybody ever heard something along these lines. Thx!
posted by Brzht
on Jan 4, 2009 -
20 answers
I recently read the short story "Buried Talents" by Richard Matheson (of "I Am Legend" fame (
Amazon link). What does it mean?
Short summary: a strange man is uncannily successful at beating a carnival game; when he leaves, the man running the game (who had been getting flustered), appears very ill.
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posted by bangitliketmac
on Nov 29, 2008 -
4 answers
I am searching for examples of The Infinite, or the immeasurably large, in our mythologies and archetypes. I am also interested in the categories of Truth which came out of the emergence of Western, ontological thought. Does the trust in a rationally conceivable reality deny us the infinity of the mythological realm? By rooting ourselves in the present, and denying atemporal mythologies, do we also deny the infinite origins from where we came?
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posted by 0bvious
on Nov 28, 2007 -
22 answers
[Man’s-Journey-to-find-himself-Filter]: I am looking for works of film and fiction that employ the imagery of traversing a difficult path/passageway as a metaphor for man’s inner journey toward connection with his unconscious
shadow (in the Jungian sense of the term).
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posted by numinous
on Mar 2, 2007 -
37 answers
I need a metaphor and an analogy for an application of social network theory.
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posted by k8t
on Oct 21, 2006 -
15 answers
What are some good image metaphors for "intelligence"? Lightbulbs, brains, computers, networks.... etc... looking for concepts, suggestions or stock images.
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posted by skrike
on Sep 6, 2006 -
14 answers
Where can I find more writing about metaphor? I vaguely remember reading something about how, when machines became ubiquitous, people began understanding their lives in terms of machines. I'm looking for that sort of thing.
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posted by Aghast.
on May 19, 2006 -
21 answers
In "What Metaphors Mean" Donald Davidson refers to a critic who called Tolstoy "a great moralizing infant". Who was that critic, and in what work was Tolstoy so called?
posted by kenko
on Mar 19, 2006 -
10 answers
MusicFilter: I am looking for songs of any genre that use food as a metaphor for sex. The two songs that I could come up with are Mississippi John Hurt's
Candyman and Van Halen's
Ice Cream Man. Thanks so much.
posted by captainscared
on Aug 22, 2005 -
59 answers
Should metaphor be taken from photography, or should photos only be approached (or critiqued) as realist?
posted by the fire you left me
on Apr 1, 2004 -
12 answers
