The definition of metaphor is: “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.”
On my other blog, I shared a thought about metaphors:
Metaphors are cool because they let you reason about a domain of knowledge by using tools that were originally intended for a different domain.
Metaphors are useful! A related but distinctly different concept from a metaphor is the concept of metonymy.
The primary difference is that a metaphor draws a similarity between objects—that is, the relation is vertical.
On the other hand, a metonym draws a link between objects that are contiguous but not similar—that is, the relation is horizontal.
The sentence “When I eat raw habanero peppers, they set my mouth on fire” is a metaphor, while the sentence "A new Oval Office has been elected" is a metonym.
In the first sentence, "peppers" and "fire" draw a similarity to one another, e.g., they are different things that can both be described as “hot.”
In the second sentence, "Oval Office" is used as a substitution for "president." The Oval Office and the president are two different things, but they are contiguous; e.g., the Oval Office is the working space of the president.
Variations of horizontal-vertical distinctions are also useful in other domains. In biology, they are often used to describe the way genes or diseases are passed on. For example, when a mother passes a disease to her child during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding, this is known as vertical transmission. In contrast, if someone catches a cold, travels, and then spreads it to others, this is an example of horizontal transmission.
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