Renton's Metaphors 3rd ed

by N.E. Renton

A concise overview of 4000 picturesque idiomatic expressions normally used subconsciously and an annotated listing to be enjoyed by all lovers of words.

The modern English language is remarkably full of metaphors. These occur constantly in ordinary conversation, in newspapers, on radio and on television, as well as in more serious literature. Metaphors improve speech and writing by conveying shades of meaning more succinctly than ordinary phrases.

This fascinating book discusses the subject in some detail. An entertaining introduction leads into a dictionary of metaphors, a thematic section and a thesaurus.

It contains some 17,000 alphabetical entries listing over 4,000 different metaphors commonly found in current use and setting out their meanings in an easily read and popular style.

This handy word-book with its highly original format will appeal to all lovers of language, as well as to writers, editors, publishers, students, migrants and those engaged in public speaking.

It also provides raw material for many specialist applications, including party games, advertising copy, church sermons, English as a 2nd language and crossword puzzles. Some fascinating Australian phrases are also presented.

The book, which is the only specialist work focusing exclusively on metaphors, also contains a short discussion of metaphors derived from religious sources. It features numerous metaphors from the Bible with their citations, showing that for better or worse current English has been influenced by the words of believers.

This new edition is a revised and expanded version of its predecessors. Further notes on metaphors and illustrations of their use have been added to the text. With minor exceptions all the metaphors listed are commonly found in current usage.

This work is an essential reference tool not only for general readers but also for libraries and educational institutions.

Professor Dame Leonie Kramer provided the Foreword.

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction

830 pages, Paperback

Published January 20, 2005

About the author

Nick Renton is an Australian actuary and the author of nearly 70 books, many on investment, business, taxation and retirement issues. He maintains a web site of over 150 pages. He was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2004.

Reviews

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

The introductory chapters are a very brief introduction to metaphors. The final chapter on Australian metaphors was a fun read, and reminds you that our language is filled to the brim with metaphors, to the point that it is almost impossible to avoid them when you write or speak. As Renton says on his front page: “Metaphors that have the community’s seal of approval roll off the tongue so readily that, by any yardstick, they are invariably thick on the ground.” Later, in Chapter One, he refers to metaphors which have been used for a hundred years or more by the wonderful term ‘fossil poetry.’ The chapter on Australian-isms demonstrates our continent has its own particular fossil-poetry, such as when we say we up the creek, have grasped the wrong end of the pineapple or have Buckley’s chance.

Personally, I often say ‘you/I have Buckley’s,’ but to date I have never questioned what it means. I now know it was originally a play on words referring to the Melbourne department store Buckley and Nunn which operated in a property which would eventually become David Jones’ Bourke Street shop. Such an example is a ‘dead’ metaphor; a phrase without a vivid origin, which is dead, buried, fossilised. Don’t forget however that the poet Nemerov said metaphors are never truly dead, only sleeping. As such, fossil-poetry is akin to zombie-dinosaurs, just waiting to be reanimated and let lose in a theme park. Sometimes such awakenings can be accidental. For example, I used to think that people missed something “by a hare’s breath,” when in fact it is meant to be “a hair’s breadth.” If I was poetically inclined, I could convert the mistake into a play on words, and bob’s your uncle.

Between the introduction and the Aussie appendix, the vast majority of the book is a dictionary with pages and pages of examples. Under ‘words’ for example, there is ‘a torrent of words’ (explained); ‘mark my words’ (explained); ‘to eat ones’ words’ (explained); ‘to put words into someone’s mouth,’ or ‘you took the words out of my mouth’ and so on and so on. None of the explanations are ground-breaking, but it is useful to realise that the words you choose (may) have metaphorical origins – such as ‘ground-breaking.’ It gets slightly more complicated, however, when you go looking for a term such as ‘ground-breaking.’ In this instance I got lucky; I went to ‘ground’ and under that heading I found ‘to break new ground: to do something for which there is no precedent,’ which is a fair assessment of the term ground-breaking.

I suspect this book would have high value for English as a second-language students. Renton suggests as much in his opening chapter, noting that metaphor makes English language rich but often difficult to comprehend and translate. As such, the book is an ideal tool, but you would want to be cautious not to overuse it, or risk a sentence such as Renton’s ‘joke’ at the start. Metaphor, says Leonie Kramer in the foreword, is the “spice” of language. As with all spices, you want to be selective and use them with a light touch. Too many or too varied and you’ll end up with an unpalatable mess which literary critics would call a mixed metaphor, or even more dismissively, a mashed metaphor. As Renton quotes an ‘anonymous writer’ – “never mix your drinks or your metaphors.” (Of course, if they’re dead metaphors buried within figures of speech, metonyms or other idiomatic language choices, you probably won’t even realise you’re doing it. Take for example a very modern dilemma; ‘my mouse isn’t working because of a bug I got while surfing the net’ – you know what it means, but look carefully and it’s a metaphorical mess.)

Overall, this book is probably a labour of love, and a useful summary of metaphors. Can I suggest however that you probably don’t need it. Have a go and see if you can’t figure out the origins of a metaphor yourself. Surely you can guess that ‘crystal clear’ alludes to something as transparent as crystal (and therefore not-opaque or obscure and therefore understandable), without having to look it up and read “to have a very obvious meaning”. If English is a language of buried metaphors as the book suggests, I’m sure you’ll be able to unearth the most probable meanings all by yourself without the well-meaning assistance of Mr Renton. On the other hand, if you don’t have the time or inclination to do the digging yourself, or you haven’t a clue who Buckley was and don’t have internet connection, then this reference book is for you – literally and metaphorically.