Or, I get what you’re saying. But why would say it that way?
Taking inspiration from Orwell, and trying to generalize his point that “the English language is in a bad way,” I would like to highlight some common instances of misusing idioms and metaphors and, by extension, incorrectly drawing one’s inferences. Also, please try to overlook if I mix up similes & metaphors. This is my possibly pointless pedantry.
But first, I’d like to proffer up shameless fascination with the art of the idioms and metaphors. Few possess the combination of being short as well as having a point. Some examples that (I think) deeply influenced my approach to work
- लहान मूल मातीचा गोळा / बच्चे गीले मिट्टी के गोले जैसे होते हैं / – the said / unsaid implication is that parents and/or teachers are like the potter who moulds the personal character of children. When I realized how much this perspective is deep-seated throughout academia, it helped me understand better many of the inherent absurdities — making children go through year-wise batches as if they were the raw material being supplied to the factories that are schools or colleges, imposing mechanical drills
Powerful as they are, I often get the feeling that we miss out on their potential to illuminate —
An example that Orwell gives is:
the hammer and the anvil, now always used with the implication that the anvil gets the worst of it. In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about: a writer who stopped to think what he was saying would avoid perverting the original phrase.
Some examples I keep coming across:
1. North Star
“What’s Our North Star?” perfectly good-natured & well-intentioned people ask each other. Other, equally good-natured & well-intentioned people answer back. Both apparently understanding this to mean something like:
- What’s our destination
- What’s the long-term goal
But how accurate is that? The North Star became to gain the importance because sailors or other travelers could rely on the North Star to keep checking if they are on the right track. The direction of the North Star, in a vast majority of cases, is not where the traveler is headed at all.
So why even use North Star to mean destination?