Why do we use metaphors?
The short answer
People use metaphors to transfer meaning and from one object to another. Metaphors are used as a teaching tool to make it easier to describe a thing, sensation, or event by leveraging another familiar thing, sensation, or event. Some estimates purport that English speakers use one unique metaphor for every 25 words spoken.
The long answer
The word "metaphor" derives from the Greek "meta" (trans) and "pherein" (to carry); in other words it means "to transfer". The purpose of a metaphor is to transfer the meaning from one object to another.
We use metaphors to do a lot of heavy lifting when we describe things. There are three main reasons why people use metaphors:
Reason #1: It's faster to explain with a metaphor.
Some things are just faster to explain or use fewer words when we employ a metaphor. Take the example, "Did you see Jesse at the game? They played like a beast." The "like a beast" part of this example is carrying a lot of meaning, suggesting that Jesse played with ferociousness, vigor, dominance, and strength. If you wanted to include all that meaning in the original statement without using the metaphor, you'd have to use way more words.
Reason #2: It's much easier to explain with a metaphor.
It's probably not a coincidence that seemingly indescribable feelings – like love and grief – are often the subject of songwriters. Take Elvis Presley's "Burning Love" for example:
"Your kisses lift me higher
Like the sweet song of a choir
You light my morning sky
With burning love"
The metaphors in these lyrics convey warmth, elevation, light, joy, and so much more. The feeling of love is one that is so difficult to contain in words, so we employ metaphors to leverage the meaning of other feelings and sensations to try to explain it better.
Reason #3: We can transfer emotional feeling using a metaphor.
Metaphors cause the listener or reader to make connections between two things, and part of those connections include our emotional feeling of the thing in question. Metaphors can be used (consciously or unconsciously) to influence the way we perceive a certain phenomenon.
A study conducted by Boroditsky and Thibodeau (2011) examined how framing the problem of crime using different metaphors resulted in different policy recommendations. The researchers had participants read different paragraphs describing crime as either a "beast" preying on a community or a "virus" infecting a city.
The subjects who read the "beast" comparison were more inclined to propose enforcement measures like increase in police forces or jailing of offenders. But the subjects who read the "virus" comparison were more likely to propose social reform solutions that would investigate the root cause and implement prevention efforts.
The way we use metaphors clearly influenced the way the participants felt emotionally about the issue. If a beast is preying on your community, you'll want to pick up your pitchforks and fight back. But if you're dealing with a virus, you're not going to attack it with force; you'll want to figure out how the disease is spreading and what you can do to reduce transmission and deal with the symptoms. Metaphors reframe how we feel about things and therefore how we think about them.
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Sources
Elvis Presley. (1972). On Burning Love. Felton Jarvis.
Ortony, A. (1975). Why metaphors are necessary and not just nice. Educational Theory, 25(1), 45–53. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-5446.1975.tb00666.x
Thibodeau, P. H., & Boroditsky, L. (2011, February 23). Metaphors we think with: The role of metaphor in reasoning. PLOS ONE. Retrieved December 1, 2022, from https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0016782
