Meta-Metaphor Humor

by Gerald Grow

Inspired in part by the Conceptual Metaphor Home Page, which is based on the work of George Lakoff.

1. I read somewhere that, because more women are entering public office, we can expect to see political metaphors shift from sports and war to more that are based on cooking. So I thought I’d better start stirring that pot.
2. I fumbled the ball on sports metaphors. And war metaphors blow me out of the water.
3. My cooking metaphors are half-baked.
4. I can’t get any mileage out of car metaphors.
5. My shooting metaphors are on target, but I can’t light a fire under the outdoor kind.
6. I’m sick of metaphors of disease.
7. People who use spatial metaphors go further and occupy higher positions.
8. I kicked butt in the aggression       metaphor contest; it was a killer.
9. I wanted to stick to adhesion metaphors, but I started to come unglued.
10. I wrestled with metaphors of struggle, but I finally gained a command of them.
11. I tried to nail together my metaphors on construction, but I could not get them to line up.
12. Before thinking about balance metaphors, I was quite level-headed. Now I feel unstable.
13. Battery metaphors energize me. I get a charge out of them.
14. Anyone who believes the mind is a machine has a screw loose.
15. He was struck by the metaphor that thoughts are physical forces.
16. “Food is a metaphor for thinking?” the teacher exclaimed derisively. “That’s a half-baked, warmed-over theory if I ever heard one!” His students could always count on him not to spoon-feed them.
17. He could not go along with the metaphor that compliance is following.
18. He began the evening investigating the metaphor of intoxication as getting destroyed, but he was soon too smashed, wrecked, and wasted to reach a conclusion.
19. He talked himself into the metaphor that the self is made up of conflicting individuals, but a part of him still believes he is a unified whole.
20. How did we get ourselves into this metaphor that equates difficulties with containers? But we’re in this together, and we have to figure a way out.
21. His metaphor of coherence just doesn’t hang together.
22. The computer tried to load the metaphor that machines are people, but half-way through it announced that the software was defective.
23. His eyes were finally opened to the metaphor that understanding is seeing.
24. He twisted our minds with his metaphors of physical manipulation.
25. He has a healthy approach to metaphors of healing.
26. In the flower of her youth, she embraced the metaphor of people as plants, but she was a late bloomer, a budding metaphorist, who has since let herself go to seed.
27. I wash my hands of this metaphor about responsibility.
28. We are at an impasse with the obstacle metaphor. We hit the wall with it. We have to find a way around it.
29. Can you walk me through this metaphor about guided motion?
30. His mind raced through the metaphor of speed. I thought through it at a snail’s pace.
31. I doubt that we can reform these metaphors about shape. It would not be fitting to do so.
32. He used a metaphor based on darkness as a solid. I tried to feel my way through it, but I found it impenetrable.
33. The pieces finally fell into place in his puzzle metaphor.
34. He’s full of metaphors about holding stuff inside. You can’t get a one out of him.
35. I took aim at his target metaphor.
36. I can’t stomach many more metaphors about internal organs. I don’t have the heart for it.
37. I’m on top of these metaphors in which height means dominance. I have them under control.
38. Your wax metaphor made an impression on me.
39. His weapon metaphors were cutting. He hurled sharp words at us.
40. Wealth metaphors have enriched my thinking.
41. Visual metaphors appear throughout his writing.
42. I was touched by your metaphor of emotion as physical contact.
43. Practicing body metaphors gives you a strong, supple mind that can grasp anything.
44. Dive into these water metaphors with me. Let’s immerse ourselves in them and fish for answers, which are surely about to surface.
45. Thinking about metaphors of brittle objects made my mind so fragile it almost snapped. I nearly cracked up, broke down, went to pieces, and fell apart.
46. I forecast that we’ve had all the climate metaphors we can weather.
47. I thought a cloth metaphor would fit the situation, but it fell apart at the seams.
48. I thought I would profit from using a money metaphor, but I paid for that costly mistake.
49. He turned over in his mind the metaphor that thinking is manipulating ideas like objects.
50. He is not crazy about the metaphor of emotion as madness.
51. She is a heavy user of weight metaphors.
52. Their mutual acceptance of music metaphors led to a harmonious relationship.