It's Like Rain, On Your Wedding Day

As we move into election season, and everyone gets more anxious, I'm noticing a rise in a bad verbal (and written) tic that really ought to get nipped, soon. It's, well, like using a metaphor or simile to make your point, except the chosen phrase is either a) a cliche or b) not really a germane comparison... or both.

A lot of post Scott Brown agonizing over the healthcare bill has drifted into football metaphors to explain the "pass the damn bill" logic - it's "fourth and goal" or we're "just inches away from a touchdown" usually meant to imply that Barack Obama is Peyton Manning or Brett Favre... oops, maybe not Brett Favre. That sort of thing.

Then tonight, watching Maddow, she was turning apoplectic (I didn't say we should outlaw big fancy words, did I) over the idea that Obama might propose some sort of spending freeze in next year's budget. After spluttering through a series of comparisons, she settled on "it's like pouring gasoline on a fire to put it out" meant to suggest that it would increase the recession, rather than decrease it. Although, to my way of think... in that example you wind up with more fire. In the increased recession... you wind up with less.

Mostly, this is just lazy, sloppy imprecise terms - and in the case of the sports metaphors, also the kind of stupid mindless sexism where we're all boys and get the boy metaphors meant to show we're competitive and butch - and it's doing nothing to increase the substantive analysis of ideas and issues. Maddow, for one, tends to use this as a crutch, convinced, I think, that if we can just relate the new outrage du jour (oooh, throws in weird foreign term) to similar examples... then we'll GET IT. Get it??? GET IT???

Later, I'll complain some more about Maddow's excessive use of sarcasm.

The thing is... I was taught to avoid a lot of "like or as" phrasing. Things which are just like... that other thing... are probably not, really (oh wait. Avoid "really"). We try too hard to be ironic, to let metaphors carry the weight of explaining why issues matter, and why we're troubled. We try to falsify urgency by relying on those sports metaphors - it's not fourth and goal or anything else on healthcare reform - because it's easier to substitute frantic urgency for the hard work of explaining why things matter.

Needless to say (then why say it?), conservatives bear a lot of the blame here; the reliance on cheap cliches and shorthand analogies drives a lot of what's supposed to represent thoughtful opposition to liberal ideas and causes, but is mostly glib, sarcastic rejoinders strung together with little real thought behind them.

Of course... who am I to say? Being a language and usage stickler isn't my forte; I always mix up metaphor and simile (that's the one with like or as... right?), and my pal J is way more on this than I. I just think treating your readers as if they're nine, unable to draw conclusions with a footbal metaphor or visions of gas on flames to illustrate obvious examples... well, you get the idea, you know, it's like when you're serving for triple match point... or something.

Comments

[jinb]

yeah, you don't see too many similes/metaphors based on rhythmic gymnastics

[Leigh]

"my pal J is way more on this than I"

Actually, I think it's "than me."