• 1) Bailout: After a tipsy policy captain wrecklessly steered America into a red sea, the Good Ship Bubblepop was swamped by an unaccounted-for economic tsunami. Investors watched their 401K’s plunge, a raft of bewildered analysts were lost at sea and slipshod execs were summoned to swab the decks. The Admiral barged into the captain’s mess and ordered the double-diphthonged bailout, scoppeting a bounty of booty towards a briny of b’rupcy – literally $2,000 for every man, woman, child and dog in America. Salvaged from the Captain’s log: “Methinks it would be not so dear to rig ‘em all with scuba gear.“

• 2) Joe the Plumber: The Republican team tried to slip-up Obama by flooding rally floors with this living, breathing metaphor for hard-workin’ tradesdudes. Sharing the GOP’s tub with Mr. Plumber was Joe Six-Pack, the beer-swilling, a-parently unemployed partner of Hockey Mom. Together, they formed a tag team of Republican rhetorical muscle, put in the ring to wrench the spiralling campaign from the ropes. Though during the election Joe plugged McCain, soon afterwards he backed up, saying his involvement with party-head John left Joe, the plumber, feeling…dirty.

• 3) Angry Whopper: Burger King’s spice-spiked Angry Whopper highlights an attitudinal change of trajectory in 2008. This positively negative emotion is normally found attached to darkly spirited characters, such as Marvel Comics’ Nick Fury, or powerful devices, such as Rage video cards. Metaphors describing spicy food usually refer to the heat of volcanoes, fire or hell. BK’s flaming mad cow patty joins the Samsung Rant cell phone, an increase in commercials where one is hit for little or no reason, and a surge in appearances of the outrageous pro John McEnroe. Where’s the beef? Maybe the mortgage meltdown, the financial crisis and high energy prices have left us all seeing red.

• 4) Toxic Assets: The economy took the plunge in O’eight, dousing the Dow and diluting Widow-and-orphan stocks into widow’s mite stocks. This ‘cession began when err-do-well banks SWAPped, swiped and swindled their way to the bottom by selling sub-standard sand castles and banking on bridled bankrupcy. In turn, the bad bets on bad debts left forward players downright backed up, out in the cold and freezing their assets. Toxic assets we called them (Observers prefer accidental poison pills or the skeletons in our wallets). They threatened to corrode the economy, forcing the big-ticket bank rescue universally known as the bailout bill. It’s nothing new – execs screw up, then the Gov coughs up. But, hey – we live and loan: those who do not learn from their mistakes are doomed to get federal aid.

• 5) Rock Star: What was once on the Sunrise side of the generation gap now straddles the greens and the grays. Record of choice – “she’s the rock star of the Republican party”, referring to vice presidi’n'tial candidate Sarah Palin. While this Sarabullish metaphor was being crooned to her neat-o north-of-forty herd, the prObama crowd crowed the same KoЯn-ish kernel to his fledgling under-40 flock. Rock-star – it’s a little bit country, it’s a little bit rock-n-roll, and it’s now the un-sung hero of the stage.

• 6) Addiction: After burying the needle and reaching all-time highs, the delirious global economy took one hit too many and hit rock bottom. Yet again, it was time to draw the line and look in the mirror: we’d become addicted to oil, addicted to spending and addicted to debt; we were broke and begging for change on the Street; depression was setting in. On chronically token, stone-sober reflection, we’d wasted years on debt-enabling policies and self-destructive optimism. So what did the government do to help us with our little problem? They borrowed more money so we could buy more stuff.[See also: Motorola Krave; CNN's Energy Fix; John Oliver's "Failure Junkie"]

• 7) Perfect storm: Over and over, it’s another day, another disaster for this over-cast meteorological star. Forced into increasingly less precipitous climes by mythomanic pressure, perfect storm is now seeded on the air and in columns to reign over pretty much anything headed south that can fill a windsock. Regrettably, our forecast is that this overblown weathaphor will not blow over anytime soon.
• 8) Train wreck: When a situation goes off the rails and winds up a twisted mental mess, writers get off their cabooses and fire up the train-wreck express. With cognitive ties to Tsunamiville, Stormburg and Meltdowntown, this hobo-kenned vehicle made a year-long milk run through the Wires, the Posts and the Telegraphs of the press’s iron road. Complete with incompetent engineers, ill-maintained corporate boxcars and a miscarriage of justice, the last train wreck left banking bums covering their tracks, bucking for mulligans and begging for handouts. All a-board!

• 9) Surge: As the troop surge marched on, the unsinkable “surge” concept was peaking on radiowaves and brainwaves alike. Eleven Pirates felt a surge on the scoreboards while Tenet’s pilots saw a surge in surgeries. Sperable candidates surged in the polls and spurious stocks surged in sticker price – at least, that is, until the countersurge came. We don’t talk much about stock surges anymore. However, we do hear the word “plunge” is surging…

• 10) Ratchet: Openly blowing smoke for years, the global economy began to sputter and lose speed, then its wheels fell off. In rhesponse, dusty gray repair vehicles were called into service, including trusty ambulances (resuscitate, CPR), tugboats (salvage, bailout) and tow trucks (jump-start, refuel). These fix-it-’phors came to a head in the fall when backbench mercanics started promising to “ratchet up” everything from soup to nuts. However, this hands-on verbal tool lost its teeth when we discovered that it was all talk – no one actually knew how to repair this heap. “It’s a real fixer-upper”, we were told. Sure, if you can find anyone who has the parts…

• 11) Pitbull in lipstick: When VP candidate Sarah Palin tagged herself with “pitbull in lipstick“, many Observers were sure she was barking up the wrong cognitive tree. Instead, this image sunk its teeth into a rural crowd seeking protection and loyalty during this time of war. But soon afterwards, Palin tore off from the Republi-pack by con-cur-rent-ly running her 2012 presidential campaign, helping guide underdog McCain from the Whitehouse to the dog house. After the election, talk shows managed to fetch the pitbull to sit and speak, though we’ve heard the first few times have been a bit, um – rough.

The rat metaphor gets dissected. Ew!

Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich pressed the right levers on the Observatory’s feed control panel, turning our scope downwards for the first time ever. In case you were tidying the bomb shelter, the Sucker State’s has-been lion has been bagged by rat catchers for soliciting bribes after several incriminating recordings were made by investigators. Apparently he forgot to pay the piper.

Yesterday, the Gov visited laid-off workers at the Republic Windows and Doors plant who’d raised a twelve-foot rat to symbolize greedy bankers. Maybe rats were on people’s minds after a rat crashed the Chicago Crime Commission awards night in November. Maybe there’s more to it than just rats.

2008 was the Year of the Rat – that is, the Chinese Year of the Rat. While North Americans and Europeans find the rat repugnant, China regards it as a bringer of prosperity. Western culture points to the rat’s low position and filthy living environment as cause for contempt: down and dirty. The “Year of the Rat” brand turned out more appropriate for export.

The rat is never lonely in da’ basement. Cockroach, weasel, worm, pig, maggot and other animates join their less-lively-therefore-less-threatening-therefore-lower-priority organic counterparts pond scum, rotten, trash and dirt. Among the inorganic underlings we enjoy sewer, gutter and toilet/potty, primarily as a source, often referring to one’s humour or conversation. And though we pay homage to those things underfoot, we are not so limited to one conceptual version of under.

The metaphors-most-vulgar can be below the belt, such as the many, many genetalia and eliminative-based metaphors. They may be intellectually or professionally beneath us, such as jackass, idiot, coconut donkey or whore. It may be economic, being nearly worthless, as in two-bit, chintzy, dime-store or cheap, or from an economic status, such as trailer-trash, third-rate or lower-class. Pick a language, culture or era, and you’ll inevitably find this class of metaphor.

Crime and sin have long been associated with these low things. Underworld is generally tied to crime and netherworld is tied to sin, though colleague outlaw gangs Hell’s Angels and Satan’s Choice blur the distinction between crime, sin and below. Given that “angel” implies animacy and “Satan’s Choice” indicates subordination, we get the semantic notions of lower and living from which many metaphors are born. Factoring in that darkness and evil are joined at the primal-brain’s hip, we get the lowly creatures of the shadows we all love to hate. Given that the sporty Blagojevich’s underground actions contradicted his position of high trust, his new nickname was inevitable.

After charges were laid, the due-process diso‘beyin’ semidemigod denied everything. Plagued by scoopsters while crawling out of a taxi, Blago politely bristled at the notion of being caged, claiming entrapment. From higher ground, it sounded more like “You dirty rats, I’ll never Sing Sing”.

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This class of unwelcome metaphors, used to describe a figure that we dislike, draws on our negative feelings towards some other object (See: The Griswald Example). Inevitably, to evoke such feelings is to evoke regional neurochemistries. We’d be wise to repel these things, and so we should chemically prepare for battle (perhaps this explains the army’s use of maggot or grunt, as shouted at a trainee). Compare this to terms of endearment such as honey, sugar or sweetie, which draw on pleasant, intimate, welcome sensory experiences (in this case food). Certainly under these conditions, one is more prone to receptiveness, which we can expect to see in the brain’s regional neurochemistries. Research from this year points to a similar relationship between physical warmth and interpersonal warmth. And we should expect many relationships like this, since, in a nutshell and at its core, the brain has little means outside regionalism to truly differentiate between cognitive, physical and emotional experiences. When someone calls us a bad name, we think, we feel, we hurt.

Change your calendars – tomorrow is here.

CNN decided to add another dimension to its election night coverage. Not the magic map nor the magic window. Nope. CNN went totally Star Wars with a news report in life-sized hologram* form.

It quickly brings to mind another line delivered by hologram: “Help me Obi Wan – you’re my only hope”, found in Episode IV: A New Hope. While the message itself in turn reminds us of Barack’s “The Audacity of Hope”, this does not qualify as metaphor, thus does not concern Observatory staff.

Instead we find significance in the other meaning that the hologram holds for us: a wonderous future. This was also seen on the Daily Show’s take on Obama’s win, as the cast walked out of the dark studio and into a bright future with animals, a clear blue sky, sunshine and a child.

In these images, we find that the first black American president is not taken as a sign of now, but as a sign that the future is now. It will be interesting to see if consumer spending follows this hopeful imagery. Maybe we’ll allow ourselves to think that this war can end.

*Note: On further inspection, this was not a true hologram, but a 2-D mockup. The impact at its time, however, remains.

Added: Al Jazeera published a collection of reactions by world leaders that supports the notion of “Obama is hope”. Well worth reading.

They’re off. It’s on. But is it a race or is it a battle?

On this, the last day before the election (whew!), we take pause to recall the long babblefest that has slopped our airwaves, headlines and carpools. Who can forget the defiant 2006 Time magazine cover “…The Next President”? [1]; the rebelious maturing of McCain? [2]; Clinton’s years spent learning the ropes? [3]; Palin’s lunge for the lead? [4]. This tireless, tiresome process tired most, having more resembled a pilgrimage to the voter’s booth than a race to the presidency.

Around the world, the rhetorical frame used to describe an election campaign typically vacillates between some form of race (usually a horserace or footrace) and some form of battle (usually boxing/wrestling or distance warfare). This election pitted several out-of-gas racing metaphors against on-the-ropes boxing metaphors (“McCain hitting his stride“, “Biden lags well back from the Democratic field” or “Romney ahead in Iowa poll” versus “Clintons provide one-two punch“, “a stunning blow to Romney” or “Clinton is beating Obama in the polls”). While other metaphor systems make appearances in American politics, the gravitational pull is always towards this mismatched attitudinal duet.

A race is a competitive forward progression along a linear path towards an untouched destination. The first competitor to reach the destination is the winner, while the others become the losers (runners up or also ran). In this way, the competition centers on the new territory beyond the finish line, metaphorically protected by a tape strewn across the finish – the winner becoming the first and only [Observer's Note: we are resisting a natural digression into the process of conception].

A battle is a competitive territorial progression within a pre-existing finite space. In this case, the destination is exclusively the territory occupied by one competitor. The competitor that acquires the other’s space becomes the victor [=conqueror], while the one that loses space becomes the defeated [from Latin: "undo"]. One is either advancing into another’s territory (on top) or they are defending their own (underdog). In this way, the battle is staged in the assumed or existing territory of one opponent [Observer's Note: we refuse to digress into a discussion of mating territory and sperm competition].

The polls have been favoring Obama for some time now. His position as favorite has it that he need only keep his pace to win the race. His lead, when placed in a battle context, implies that he had gained at least some assumed Republican territory from McCain, which could only be taken as an invasion. In response, McCain switched into battle mode, defending the GOP from losing further ground. Hence, the late-day introduction of Palin, a hunting mom described as “a pitbull” and “a rogue“: a pistol-packin’, unchained she-dog of war. In the run-up to the Palin-Biden debate, many talking heads said that Biden had to be soft on her, being that she is a female and all [5]. With her role as pooch in a PETA environment, it was necessary for criticism to avoid the ad feminam – so lawbyists from the Democratic camp seized on the party’s decision to shroud Palin in fineries [6]. This pincer strategy by the left-handed CREW assured Observers that Obama’s race was now being run on a battlefield.

The rhetoric has been getting down and dirty in these final hours before the election with blockbuster anti-Obama ads saturating the air. And while the Obama campaign had tried to run aloft and clean, the McCain warrior brought in the blood and mud. Fixedly attacking Obama’s heels with Sarah the Pitbull, McCain put himself across as an underdog who was defending the Conservative territory. So while Obama was in a race because he was ahead, McCain was in a battle because he was being defeated.

The Observatory entertained the notion that this rhetoric has created an electoral Circus Maximus. Obama Ben Hur has been racing for the presidential prize with his white horses of hope (“yes we can”) and a gilded chariot (well-funded campaign) against McCain Messala and his dark horses of despair (impending Al Qaeda attack, floundering middle class). McCain’s Palin-spiked wheels were brought in to help destroy Obama’s vehicle, while McCain continued lashing out at Obama himself. Obama necessarily fought back, but never lost sight of the finish line. So will Obama the Favorite win the race, or will McCain the War Hero win the battle? As we enter the final stretch, we must wait patiently to find out….or we can just YouTube it!

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Our condolences to Barack for the loss of his grandmother, Madelyn.

Today’s announcement by Yahoo that it would lay off 10% of its staff came as little surprise to economic doomsayers. The news hit the stock markets like a cheap burrito, clearing out all other financial reports we’d been patiently digesting in this ailing economy. At this moment the bears are feasting on the bloated carcasses of the bulls.

This news does not, however, catch the eye of the Observatory. Instead we take pause to note the metaphors used to describe today’s announcement. While somewhat benign words such as reduce, downsize or adjust could’ve made the headlines, the tone that dominated was swift and brutal. A bloodbath: Jason visits Yahoo.

The four most popular metaphors used for the reports were “cut“, “chop“, “slash” and “axe – not unusual faces in the Layoff Headlines crowd. A gentler time might have popped in the value-added metaphors “trim”, “pare” or “shave”, each denoting the removal of excess rather than the indiscriminate vivisection of the workforce. There is no specificity to imply that only workers who are unnecessary are being targeted. This broad, random penstroke encourages a fear or anger response from the reader that may not have come into being with a less generalized threat – how sensational!

Of course newshacks could’ve removed, amputated or extracted a deemed gangrenous staff. They could’ve implied that Yahoo needs to lose the dead weight, lighten the load or trim the fat anoinking headlines with a porkly feel. Meanwhile, The Telegraph cast the word “shed” for the part, with its relatively dilute semantic (bloodshed, shed some light, shed one’s skin).

Decidedly trashy was AP’s tag “Yahoo To Dump 1500 Workers…”, implying that the workers were being treated as if garbage. Such a disposition was arguably the most critical of Yahoo from all the rhetoric we could quickly find. Then again, The Chronical’s “Day of the Locusts” turns the layoffs into a melodramatic insectidotal play, complete with high-flying villains and low-lying crop-people. In the word dump and by the implications made by locust, we find the management framed as evil, treating workers as worthless commodity, for casual disposal or indelicate consumption.

Yahoo spokesplumbers decided to water down the issue a little with “streamline our processes”. In this poorly sealed rhetorical envelope, Yahoo disguises the abrasive forces by revealing the finished product. Silently, the old lines they are removing in this streamlining process are becoming new lines at the unemployment office. Yahoo has learned much from Jason: no matter which deadly tool he uses to brutally chop, slash or axe, he always cleans up afterwards and hides the bodies.

By the time this post was published, the DOW had eased by 693 points. Jason Takes Manhattan.

Building a bigger, better hole…

Many observers have noticed an awful lot of metaphors are being used to describe the current American financial crisis. In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, the Metaphor Observatory opined that this surge of metaphor was a response to the fact that nobody could understand the situation. As it turns out, that “nobody” includes government regulators, investment houses and lending institutions.

Despite the impending economic cataclysm surrounding bad loans, American leaders set aside their fears and bravely borrowed more money, throwing in a few bells, horns and arrows to feed the piggy. There is never an economic hole so deep that we can’t dig our way out of it. And man the shovels have been flying.

As George Lakoff noted, metaphors are usually chosen from somewhere close at hand. For all but the transcendental, that would include our own body. This is why metaphors equating the economy to a sick lifeform would soon get brought up – which is where we Observed the following:

the oxygen is cut off – lending is the oxygen of the economy (spending is the fuel?).

health of the economy – the economy is a living, breathing creature.

lifeblood of the economy – lending carries nutients around an economy.

put a tournequet on the situation – economic lifeblood is leaking due to injury.

shock the heart of the economy – the heart of the economy (unspecified) has stopped.

stop the bleeding – economic lifeblood is leaking.

inject capital – money is a blood transfusion.

addicted to credit – the lifeform has uncontrollable bad habits.

Both houses and the president visited upon the lacerated economy with a policy bandage and an injection of capital to replace the lost lifeblood, leaving suckers to pay the bill. But the rescue shot was contanimated with pork, and the butcherous banker beneficiaries returned to old habits. In the end, our 700 billion dollar injection turned out to be one giant suppository.