From graywyvern@hotmail.com Fri Oct 20 11:42:00 2000 Return-Path: X-Sender: graywyvern@hotmail.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@egroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-6_1_0); 20 Oct 2000 18:41:59 -0000 Received: (qmail 17485 invoked from network); 20 Oct 2000 18:41:59 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m3.onelist.org with QMQP; 20 Oct 2000 18:41:59 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO hotmail.com) (216.33.236.193) by mta1 with SMTP; 20 Oct 2000 18:41:59 -0000 Received: from mail pickup service by hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Fri, 20 Oct 2000 11:41:58 -0700 Received: from 209.176.48.48 by lw7fd.law7.hotmail.msn.com with HTTP; Fri, 20 Oct 2000 18:41:58 GMT X-Originating-IP: [209.176.48.48] To: lojban@egroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] RE:literalism Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 18:41:58 GMT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 20 Oct 2000 18:41:58.0381 (UTC) FILETIME=[6D57C1D0:01C03AC5] From: "michael helsem" >From: pycyn@aol.com li'o >By the way, if by "metaphor" you mean >something inaccurate, hardly (see below) >in what way is "skyscraper" one and >"airplane" not? Or "tall tall building" for that matter? perhaps it would not be pedantic as i feared, to insist now that a metaphor IS A SIMILE (X is like Y in resemblance Z: which SIMSA does handle) WITH THE COMPARISON LEFT IMPLICIT (X is [like] Z... or even just [X is like] Z...). A metaphor can comprise any combination of words i can think of, but the thing itself is far from being anything that i say it is. (--Even poets don't have that license.) Unfortunately that point has been lost in english poetry, to the point where any vague expression, whether or not it has some thought behind it, passes muster as "metaphorical" [rant omitted]; still, for our purposes, the older &/or obsolete meaning of the word is applicable. to really answer your question, a skyscraper is like something so tall that it could scrape at the sky if the sky were something solid & surfacelike (so actually it's a DOUBLE kenning, "the scraper of the ceiling of the sky"--) & neither a scraper nor a scraper of that surface...but we DO want to convey that it's a building with a building's uses, don't we?? "Airplane" is less metaphorical. I presume it's metonymic in taking a part of the plane (its wings) for the whole, but at least it does go through the air. li'o Kennings: okay, then, there is one term which stands for--no, that's a metaphor too--HAS AS ITS REFERENT the referent of another word we have decided not to use, for poetic reasons. The choice of the sub- stitute word depends (that means: 'hangs from' but REALLY--) upon either phonic or associational considerations or both. It comes from, in Old Norse usage, one well-defined semantic field such that the choice of the second term creates a sense of paradox by coming from a very different, or opposite, semantic field; & then there is the (somewhat optional) additional requirement that these two terms are unlike in a different way (usually, abstract/paticular) which creates a second paradoxicalness. And there is an implied simile in the choice of the first term but not the second, purely arbitrary one. (But it is often more conventional a simile or even practically nonexistent in resemblance to the untraditional mind.)--Anyway, those semantic & con- ceptual oppositions are not requirements in the expanded sense of "kenning" i was using in order to include all the similar devices across cultures. But most good ones have them to some degree. "Rug Rats" for example combines something that a house is glad to have, with something it isn't. "Skyscraper" is a good one (in english!) for combining a solid with an ethereal, & alliterating. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.