Patrick Cox

Patrick Cox

Patrick Cox runs The World's language desk. He reports and edits stories about the globalization of English, the bilingual brain, translation technology and more. He also hosts The World's podcast on language, The World in Words.

Killing Off a Metaphor With a Fresh Coat of Paint

December 27, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment
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The Forth Bridge, just outside Edinburgh, was opened in 1890. Opened but not really completed. In fact, it seemed as though it would never be completed. The paint would flake off, and just as soon as one part of the bridge was repainted, another would need a touch-up.

And so a metaphor was born: like painting the Forth Bridge, or that’s a Forth Bridge paint job. Brits used it to describe arduous, unending tasks. Memorizing multiplication tables. Preparing your tax return. Attending a Grateful Dead concert.

But now, the endless paint job has ended. The paint is hardier these days—so much so that the bridge won’t need another coat for about 25 years. For the first time in the bridge’s history, “there will be no painters required on the bridge,” beams Colin Hardie, the construction superintendent of the paint contractor Balfour Beatty. “Job done.”

Hardie gets into murkier water with this declaration: “The old cliché is over.”

Is it? Will people stop using a metaphor just because it no longer holds up?

We don’t necessarily stop using phrases just because they’re out of date. We still put the cart before the horse even though we ride on neither. We still put in our two cents even though we rarely use pay phones anymore (and when we do it costs considerably more than two cents).

Plus, this is a strictly British expression. And Brits don’t embrace Americanisms, or at least they like to think they don’t. Otherwise, they’d happily trade the idea of a painting a bridge for playing an arcade game. The phrase like playing Whac-A-Mole would be a fine substitute for like painting the Forth Bridge. But it’s not going to happen. For one thing, Whac-A-Mole needs to be explained to most Brits, myself included.

So what might replace painting the Forth Bridge? Etymologist Mark Forsyth suggests bailing out the Euro. And there’s waiting for the Arab summer (we are currently in the fifth quarter of the Arab spring).

Also in the podcast this week:

South Africa’s newest pop sensation Zahara talks about singing in both English and her native Xhosa. Her debut album, Loliwe, is itself a metaphor for absence, well known to Xhosa speakers.

And a study by Yale economist Keith Chen claims that the language you speak may determine how much money you save. According to Chen, you’re in luck if your native tongue doesn’t have a future tense. Linguist John McWhorter told reporter Audrey Quinn that he begs to differ with this theory. And he has a theory of his own as to why so many people are attracted to the idea that thought and behaviour spring from language.

Discussion

6 comments for “Killing Off a Metaphor With a Fresh Coat of Paint”

  • http://www.facebook.com/annis.hopkins Annis Hopkins

    I enjoyed the piece, of course, being a “word” person myself (38 years as an English teacher), but I was rather struck by the misuse of the word “metaphor”!   When we use the words “like” or “as” in setting up a comparison, we’re using a SIMILE, not metaphor.  In simplest terms, a metaphor is defined as an implied comparison, whereas a simile is explicit, using the words “like” and “as.”  I think it’s important to keep these definitions separate.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OR7SUPV3AS4QLZL6GXP2CRQCGA Robert

    Annis Hopkins in the preceding comment stole my thunder.  She is exactly right.  Comparisons using the word “like” or “as” are similes, not metaphors.  What left me dumbstruck when I heard the story about the Bridge of Forth on the radio yesterday was that neither the print author (a Brit) nor the radio interviewer (an American) had an inkling, apparently, of what they were revealing to millions regarding their lack of knowledge about the basics of their own language.  If authors and journalists and “communications majors” are that oblivious, what’s to become of the rest of us?  We may as well start learning Chinese now.

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  • Anonymous

    It can be used as both a simile and a metaphor. As I wrote, you can also say something is “a Forth Bridge paint job”. Sorry not to mention similes in the post. 
    As it happens, I am learning Chinese. Maybe that’s affected my understanding of English figures of speech…

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