The Material World Affects Metaphors

Not all metaphors are equally useful tools. In the well-known balcony scene in Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, when Romeo says “Juliet is the sun,” context makes it obvious that Romeo is calling Juliet the most radiant thing in his universe, around which his world revolves, and a source of metaphorical light in his heretofore dark and depressed existence. Romeo is not suggesting that treating Juliet as though she were the star at the center of the solar system—avoiding looking at her directly, wearing sunscreen, ensuring that plants have adequate access to her radiation, etc.—is useful for working with Juliet. The genetic code is an example at the other extreme—a language practice that coheres so well with physical practices that it is useful for guiding work of myriad kinds. Many metaphors fall somewhere in the middle.

Evelyn Fox Keller describes the difference between “Juliet is the sun” and “the genetic code” in terms of the resources that the metaphor can mobilize. In other words, some metaphors can gather up, organize, and make sense of lots of (physical and other language practices) under them. Others are one-offs, turns of phrase that accomplish a particular job in a bit of writing but don’t do much work beyond that. The material world affects how metaphors work just as metaphors affect how the material world works.

Recognizing that all metaphors are not equal helps to distinguish metaphors that don’t require much technical or ethical consideration from those that do. Decorative metaphors can be useful to help light-hearted science writing (not just for non-specialist audiences but in talks, posters, and perspective pieces for scientists, too) be more enjoyable and memorable. Vivid decorative metaphors attract attention by being unexpected, and by invoking specific mental images.

They run relatively little risk of audiences misunderstanding them as more than decorative, though that risk varies with context, especially the knowledges audiences bring with them. For example, enologists who study wine flavor may talk about how to amplify raspberry notes in pinot noir, knowing that they’re talking about analogizing grape-derived flavors to flavors associated with a completely different fruit, but some non-specialists may think that they’re talking about literally adding raspberries to the wine. On the one hand, this is a misunderstanding; on the other, it’s understandable, in light of how food products often contain “hidden ingredients.”