Comments on: Multimedia Dead Metaphors

By: Barry

Barry — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:07:48 +0000

Shoot, Julian – I was gonna use that.

By: Julian Sanchez

Julian Sanchez — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 07:01:36 +0000

Sandy-
I vaguely recall reading the observation a few years back — I think it was in an interview with William Gibson — that the iconic first line of Neuromancer (“The sky above the port was the color of a television tuned to a dead channel”) now gives totally the wrong impression, suggesting a rich, uniform blue rather than a mottled gray.

By: Glen

Glen — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 05:06:34 +0000

I’ve noticed a lot of movies and TV shows (including the one I work for) using paper tickets for airplanes, despite the fact that pretty much everyone gets e-tickets now. And it seems like I’ve recently seen lovers accompany each other all the way to the gate for one person’s departing flight, despite this having been impossible since 9/11.

Also, I’m reminded of Joss Whedon’s decision to insert old Western movie tropes into Firefly, including tropes that were a result of the film technology of the time — such as oversaturated shots, light spots in the camera lens, brief loss of focus in action shots, etc.

By: Sandy

Sandy — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:33:43 +0000

Lots of “turn off the TV” visuals include either static or the picture shrinking down to a point before disappearing. Few modern TVs will display static, and if it isn’t yet dead it soon will be. I’m not sure the last time I saw a TV that will actually shrink down to a point when turning off…it has to be at least 10 years.

Similarly, lots of cell phones have simulations of two bells inside an old-style telephone being struck. I’m positive many readers of this blog have never heard the original in person.

By: Erstwhile

Erstwhile — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 19:23:17 +0000

You appear to have used the word “apt” when you meant “likely.”

I’ll probably never forgive you.

By: Tomorrow Museum » Archive » Merry Linkmas

Tomorrow Museum » Archive » Merry Linkmas — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 01:56:46 +0000

[...] “Lazysphere” is winning as 1.9% of the 1.8M tweets used either the word retweet or RT, multimedia dead metaphors, designing through the recession, Erin’s podcasting again at Steady Diet of Film and posted [...]

By: Emma Zahn

Emma Zahn — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 22:55:55 +0000

how did they convey the stories upon which the metaphors were based?

Visually? Just guessing but that is how I understood the metaphor “jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof”. I had actually seen one before I ever heard the expression.

Don’t you need a conventional nouns-and-verbs first order language FIRST in order for these other terms to get invested with significance?

Not a linguist but aren’t the terms in my example just simple natural language sensory descriptives.

If not and/or additionally, how did they talk about engine maintenance problems?

I may be betraying my demographic in this comment but I can tell you have never watched a bunch of guys tinker with an automobile engine for hours and hours and exchange fewer words among them than are in your original post. I don’t pretend to understand how they communicate, but somehow they do.

By: Petey

Petey — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:40:34 +0000

“Despite my fondness for the Merry Pranksters, my recollection is that the common use of “drink the Kool-Aid”, in the sense of ’subscribe to a group ideology’ didn’t gain prominence until after the Jonestown incident.”

According to Wikipedia, the phrase doesn’t first appear as metaphor until 1987.

So both Kool-Aid drinking references were floating around together in the collective unconsciousness together for 9 years before it got crystalized into a meme that could show up in LexisNexis.

—–

“Consider undertaking a quick Google search before you “correct” people. It’s apt to spare you a good deal of embarrassment.”

Basically disagree. Anything short of you having actually written a Kesey biography wouldn’t detract from the apropos poesy of my comment.

By: biggerbox

biggerbox — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:18:08 +0000

Despite my fondness for the Merry Pranksters, my recollection is that the common use of “drink the Kool-Aid”, in the sense of ‘subscribe to a group ideology’ didn’t gain prominence until after the Jonestown incident.

Jones may well have known about, and gotten his idea from Kesey’s LSD technique, but I’d judge that the metaphor started with Jonestown.

By: Julian Sanchez

Julian Sanchez — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:14:17 +0000

Petey:
Consider undertaking a quick Google search before you “correct” people. It’s apt to spare you a good deal of embarrassment.