Fighting words are the harshest and most effective criticisms we can make about others. If we use the right words, the violence is sure to begin. A typical insult refers to bodily waste or waste organs, genitalia, dirt or low creatures. Even the first bad-guy in the Bible was a lowlife. Compare these hateful frameworks to those of love, which typically refer to sweet foods or beautiful things, and we get a generalized notion that positive things that we internalize are rhetorically good, and unwanted or dirty things are rhetorically bad.

Of course, it is all relative. And there are degrees – in some cases, the unwanted are merely expelled, like pagan snakes by an ordinary good-guy like Patrick, while at other times, the unwanted must be eliminated, like pagan warriors by a stonking-good childe like David. Many words, including “eliminate“, and phrases, such as “get rid of“, have undergone a semantic expansion from a literal meaning of  “clear away” to a second metaphorical meaning “kill“. This process is nothing new or unhealthy - lively words will always get muddy feet.

Sarah Palin’s crosshairs metaphor makes rifle targets out of specific opponents, slating them for political removal. Crosshairs are a common concept in targeted marketing, which aims to capture some market share or on making the kill. We normally think little about these fully-entrenched concepts. Today, they are all the rage. In order to fully recognize the meaning behind Palin’s crosshairs metaphor, we first need to look objectively at the available images, then compare them to other, similar metaphors. First, here are two versions of the ad.

The first image clearly shows crosshairs over very specific points across America. We note that districts are not highlighted and the scopes are overlapped, implying that this is not a regional targeting of any kind. Further, the second image confirms that the targets are indeed candidates, rather than territories. This means that the reader can reasonably derive that we are to somehow target – and presumably metaphorically shoot – the listed candidates, and where we can expect to find them.

Soon after the rampage, without explanation, Palin’s webmasters removed the images from the websites. But now The Metaphor Observatory must ask: are these images actually inciting violence?

To best begin, we should mention that most dead metaphors haunt a language virtually undetected. It is part of the normal life of a metaphor, and is part of what naturally builds a language. For example, we don’t think of the figurative implications when opening a window and searching for Tweets. Metaphor helps make new knowledge intuitively familiar to us. Occasionally, marketers will revive a long-dead metaphor by lifting it from dusty text into glossy image. Targeting, as a concept in marketing, is pretty much a dead metaphor, yet the crosshairs metaphor lives a healthy, vibrant life all around us.

Blagojevich in the Crosshairs

Sarah Palin's Crosshairs Metaphor With Candidate Names

 So while we may target an individual without implicitly threatening them, it is a metaphorical death threat to place them in our crosshairs. This is not to say that we should immediately condemn Palin’s use of the crosshairs metaphor as a threat. Before that, we should make a comparison with metaphors from other, similar conceptual frameworks. For that, we need to find some of crosshairs’ peers and put them on the same map.

The crosshairs imply shooting, usually taken as shooting with a rifle. It is specific, in that a projectile is directed through space to a pinpointed location, typically the deemed heart or head of that which is being targeted. In this way, it could be compared to a sword, knife or spear, which also move points or lines through space to a targeted location with the intent to kill.

A more general interpretation of the crosshairs is that they simply imply an aim to kill by any means. Other rhetorical killing devices can then be compared – for example, a bomb or a noose (ticking time bomb, lynching). Then again, one can take the view that the crosshairs are used only to imply that the targeted thing is harmful and should be taken out, not necessarily killed, such as cancer, vermin or bacteria (of course, given the apothecarian framework set by the text, we might expect to see pills rather than crosshairs). But do the crosshairs somehow imply that the target is necessarily a bad thing? Is the target something that must be eliminated? Is it a threat or is it an opportunity?  For marketers, bait, hooks, snares and the kill are all good things, a natural part of seizing opportunity.

In 1962, the Dayton Company opened its first Target Store: “As a marksman’s goal is to hit the center bulls-eye, the new store would do much the same in terms of retail goods, services, commitment to the community, price, value and overall experience”. Early marketing at Target Stores included “Aim straight for Target discount store!”; “Bullseye Clearance Sale”.

Sarah Palin’s crosshairs may have then only been intended to direct us to somehow metaphorically capture these candidates, like capturing market share. Was the intent of the kill merely to capture the candidate’s political will? At the bottom of the second image, we see the happy words “Already retiring at the end of their terms. 17 more to go!”. Not joy for the capture of political will, but clearly the celebration of an easy kill. After all, retirement is the death of one’s career, and the three crosshairs are marked in red.

We may never know the real reason that Jared Lee Loughner went on his killing spree. Even if we can somehow connect his actions to Sarah Palin’s powerful metaphor, it does not explain why he would allow himself to discard his humanity and follow this metaphor’s implied instructions in the first place. Perhaps therein we have our answer. From early reports, it would appear that he was a ticking time bomb, just waiting to be placed.

After overdue consideration and numerous recounts, The Metaphor Observatory has reached a reluctant concensus among staff. The 2008 Top Ten Metaphors list was particularly difficult due to the enormous diversity of metaphors used to describe the candidates of the American election and the causes of the financial crisis. While the crisis brought out many metaphors of disaster, the election brought out the most disastrous metaphors.

In 2008, the two most dominant headlines were the crisis and the election. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan became editor’s backfill; the once-gripping rhetoric slipping into redundancy. Despite this, “surge“, the adopted metaphor child of the Iraq war, continues to rear offspring of its own. However, due to the now lengthy nature of the troop surge, the semantics of the word “surge” became quietly extended to include any rise in quantity for an “indefinite” period of time (see: escalation).

The year spawned mobs of animal metaphors, perhaps most timely was Blagojevich’s depiction as a rat. The over-the-toppedness nature of his hair, his underhanded deeds and his smug-induced euphoria all made for easy targets. In a normal year, he might’ve taken center stage in our top ten for this. Not this year. For the first time in ages, the press flooded the sewers of high society, forcing many other unscrupulous characters to the surface, hogging Blaggy’s stage. While describing the nature of their swindling was at times lengthy and complicated, a description of the perpe-traitors themselves was a curt curse away.

A massive groping search for words to explain the financial crisis led to one of the largest metaphor spikes in recent history. Clumsy hosts were serving up mixed metaphor and butchered simile in the TV feed trough and calling it pudding. We could only find one singular, comprehensive, coherent description of the crisis, and so awarded its author with the 2008 Metaphorist of the Year. It was the least we could do, despite all efforts.

We at the Observatory felt fulfilled filing our own description of the crisis, “economic souffle“: in our insatiable appetite for consumption, we relied on a few bad eggs who whipped up a delicate dish of an economy; one which is mostly hot air, and one in which the slightest shock would leave us deflated, hungry and angry. Observatory kitchen staff even cooked up our own saucy description of the current economy: “Smokin’!“.

And just as the economic meltdown was worthy of metaphor, so too was the multizeroferous fix. Simply titled the bailout bill (we preferred the Rube Goldberg bill), metaphors describing its vastitude would fail to stimulate our minds after years of constant exposure to Americainous hyperbole. Of course, the sticker shock alone already had us feeling senseless and outnumbered.

Meanwhile, there was some business to do on the soapbox – the presidential race. Like the crisis, this topped headlines around the world. Only in America, the devil in the details was in the demographics. There was never a shortage of such sensational material, whether it was the He V. She on the D side, or the shunamitistic groin pull McCain got from his right hand man.

Overall, 2008 was an 11. That is, there was so much activity in metaphor, and in so many subjects – and to such extremes – that the Observatory felt it needed to somehow, metaphorically represent the year. Thus, and in keeping with the tone, we borrowed our metaphor from Nigel, of Spinal Tap fame, when describing the virtues of his Marshall amplifier:

“You’re on Ten, all the way up, all the way up…Where can you go from there? Nowhere. What we do, is if we need that extra push over the cliff…Eleven. One louder.”

The annual Top Ten List of Metaphors in the Media for 2008 was compiled from a casual observation of headlines, new product names, advertisements and discourse in several forms of media around the world. The general treatment of a given story is reflected metaphorically by the tone of the description we provide. For example, we offer the tone of carelessness, incompetence and disaster to our description of “bailout“, since this was the common rhetorical frame used to describe its necessity, and the implication made by the term itself. We try our best to capture and reflect the broadest public sentiment, or the noble efforts made by the media to sway it.

As usual, the Metaphor Observatory’s top metaphors are chosen based on a magical combination of the following:
- accuracy (ie: Does it make sense as a metaphor?)
- popularity (ie: Did it catch on?)
- impact (ie: Did it successfully communicate to its audience? )
- relevance to 2008 (ie: Is it contemporary?).

The Metaphor Observatory’s Top Ten Metaphors for the year 2008:

Awarded By The Observatory:

Golden Raspberry – Audi, Own The Road (2008): This year’s Golden Raspberry is awarded to performance auto maker Audi, for their commercial “Own The Road“, featuring eager gentlemen receiving sizable chunks of pavement as gifts, complete with bits from the shoulder and across the centerline. We give our thumbed-nose thanks to Audi, for using metaphor to justify aggressive driving, and doing away with the apparently outmoded concept of “sharing” the road.

Golden Bridge – John McCain: This award is given to the newsmaker who bridges one significant news item with another from the same period, using metaphor. We note that there were drive-by shootings occuring in both war zones at the time, and these wars and the mortgage crisis were prominent figures in McCain’s campaign.

“Homeowners are the innocent bystanders in a drive-by shooting by Wall Street and Washington.” Presidential Candidate John McCain, October 22, 2008.

Golden Watch – Meltdown and Fallout: There are two recipients of this year’s Golden Watch, awarded to metaphors that have worked hard and are anxiously awaiting retirement. Longidental nuclear siblings Meltdown and Fallout topped the world’s headlines for several years, hanging out with such stars as Mark Foley, Michael Jackson and Britney Spears. So, how did typesetters keep these aging metaphors alive and looking phresh? Facelifts.

Living, Breathing Metaphor of the Year – Barack Obama: Barack Hussein Obama was a surprise entry into this year’s Top Ten List. Being black while venturing into historically white turf, he visibly symbolized change. With both black and white ancestry, Christian and Muslim lineage and his peaceful disposition, he embodied racial and religious harmony, thus hope. These are desperate times; when desperate, change is hope, hence “Yes we can”. We are forced to ask, was he really elected for his policies, or as a metaphor for hope and change?

Metaphor Discovery of the Year – Heat Makes People Warm: This year, Lawrence E. Williams at the University of Colorado published a study showing a connection between physical and emotional warmth. The research, involving conversations between people while drinking either warm or cold beverages, showed that warm beverages lead to warmer receptions. To Observers, this work furthers the notion that our brains may not distinguish bewteen metaphor and reality as much as we’d like to think. Of course, what could a bunch of neuron’s know anyhow?!

Metaphorist of the Year – Paddy Hirsch: The Metaphor Observatory recorded over 8 million different metaphors for the economic crisis during 2008. However, after an external audit, it was discovered this number was somewhat overstated by our executives. There were only seven. And of those seven, only one was good enough to win its creator the title Metaphorist of the Year. Marketplace Senior Editor Paddy Hirsch’s “Uncorking CDO’s”, though self-described as simile, was equally a worthy metaphor system, elegantly delivering a simple explanation of this complex concept. Hirsch joins fellow unnotified honorees George Lakoff, Stephen Colbert, Lou Dobbs and Jon Stewart.

1) Bailout
2) Joe The Plumber
3) Angry Whopper
4) Toxic assets
5) Rock-star
6) Addiction
7) Perfect storm
8) Train wreck
9) Surge
10) Ratchet
11) Pitbull in lipstick

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”.

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.

We are also preparing the 2008 Top Ten List of Metaphors, which will be coming out fairly soon as well. This year’s list has been especially difficult to compile, given the enormity and diversity of the issues making the news.

We apologise for our absense.

Financial Crisis Solved: Inject Capital Into Credit Addicts

Crisis Metaphors Surge: Our Cup Overloadeth

Outsourcing Blame: Metaphors of the Economic Crisis

Metaphor in Financial Crisis

“…it is not going to be easy for us to dig ourselves out of the hole we are in.” Barack Obama

“We’ll dig our way out!” Homer Simpson

Our economy is a hole that covers us.

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.

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!

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.