forwards and upwards – charts an individual child’s development, but also echoes the story of progress we tell ourselves as a species. From our lolloping four-legged ancestors evolved Homo erectus – upright at last – who gave rise to Homo sapiens, always depicted mid-stride. As George Lakoff and Mark Johnson vividly illustrate in their 1980 classic Metaphors We Live By, orientational metaphors such as ‘good is up’ and ‘good is forward’ are deeply embedded in Western culture, shaping the way we think and speak.13
