heavy use of metaphor

[redbaron]

Is the tendency to use metaphors very often (and good ones!) type-related?

[Creepy-Diana]

.

[sema sahin]

I don't know. I don't use metaphors much in person though. I think I'm an INFj.

[Brilliand]

All language is metaphor. Some are simple enough that you need only one word to call the metaphor to mind; some are complex enough that you need to tell the whole story. Sometimes the person you're talking to has a small enough vocabulary that you need to physically show them (though that will work even with people of large vocabulary).

Okay, gradient; we only call the more detailed metaphors "metaphors." My point is that it's a more detailed version of something that all language is doing anyway, so everyone does it.

Intuitive types would have both greater reason and less ability to speak in metaphor, due to thinking about things less closely connected to experience.

[DirectorAbbie]

I don't use metaphor, but I love analogies.

[redbaron]

okay, to be more specific--the tendency to use metaphor in conversation to illustrate your point and communicate more clearly.

I've seen it less with SF types than with ST types. I've seen it a lot with NT and NF types. So maybe something like this:

NT>NF>ST>SF

I dunno... maybe not type related after all. heh.

[FDG]

okay, to be more specific--the tendency to use metaphor in conversation to illustrate your point and communicate more clearly.

I've seen it less with SF types than with ST types. I've seen it a lot with NT and NF types. So maybe something like this:

NT>NF>ST>SF

I dunno... maybe not type related after all. heh.

Mm, well, that ordering is from most-socially-closed to least-socially-closed club (least involved (n&t function) to most involved (s&f)). So, if that's true, it could be related to this property.

[ArchonAlarion]

I don't use metaphor, but I love analogies.

I prefer analogies. Metaphors can be cool though because it makes what you're saying more epic.

[Brilliand]

I don't use metaphor, but I love analogies.

Wait, there's a difference?

Maybe an analogy is only a metaphor when it doesn't use "like" or "as"?

[ArchonAlarion]

similies.

Analogies are more demonstrative and have a goal to make someone understand something, whereas metaphors and similies act as convenient descriptions.

[Brilliand]

Mm, well, that ordering is from most-socially-closed to least-socially-closed club (least involved (n&t function) to most involved (s&f)). So, if that's true, it could be related to this property.

Every ordering of the four clubs is from one dichotomy side to another.

[DirectorAbbie]

similies.

Analogies are more demonstrative and have a goal to make someone understand something, whereas metaphors and similies act as convenient descriptions.

Yeah. I don't use metaphores because it sometimes sounds like lying. I sorta use it for name-calling. "You're the battery to my cardboard box." (aka: you're useless.) But I use analogies on a regular basis and expect others to use them too. It helps me get a mental image of abstract concepts.

[tereg]

Analogy: Remembering how to do something that you haven't done in a long time is like remembering how to ride a bike. The motions you need to do it are familiar to you even if you've been away from it for a long time

Metaphor: A man walks into the center of a crossroad at an intersection hardly used, stops and looks around, pondering his existence.


Edit: On a personal note, I prefer using analogies when describing things to people, and hardly ever use metaphor.

[Slacker]

I think I use a lot of both. Although it might just be because I'm talkative and I eventually say lots of everything.

[tereg]

To answer the question, I think in general, usage of metaphors and analogies are N based, both Ne and Ni.

[Creepy-Diana]

.

[Brilliand]

I think in metaphors sometimes, but when I express them, they become analogies - except in the rare cases when I decide that the two things that I'm comparing are actually the exact same thing (say the equation of a line and the graph of that equation - I might proclaim those to be the exact same thing). So, I don't use metaphors - just analogies.

[redbaron]

I think I use a lot of both. Although it might just be because I'm talkative and I eventually say lots of everything.

cute!

[redbaron]

okay so I'm not really sure if I meant simile, metaphor or analogy. I just meant using word-pictures to help explain or clarify one's meaning to another.

[Blaze]

i love metaphor. analogies, less so. and similes....less still.

it's like being on top of a cliff, looking down over your life.

[JWC3]

Is it a metaphore if you change the situation to better convey what your trying to say?

Either way I create imaginary scenarios to convey a point all the time.

I.E. on the "Eye for an eye philosophy"

Well let's look at this from a grad school perspective, if a bully hits me why shouldn't I hit him back?

[Jarno]

Is the tendency to use metaphors very often (and good ones!) type-related?

me too.

I guess Ni ?

[silverchris9]

Analogies are more demonstrative and have a goal to make someone understand something, whereas metaphors and similies act as convenient descriptions.

Ummm... I disagree. It would be completely wrong to imply that metaphors do not have the goal of "making someone understand something," as metaphors obviously have a goal of communication. If a person is reasonably intelligent, they use a metaphor because there is an aspect of their information that they believe is better conveyed via metaphor than other means. Language isn't all denotation; connotation and implications are usually as important, if not more. Furthermore, to imply that analogies are more demonstrative is... wrong. I think by "more demonstrative" what you mean is "more straightforwardly explaining a process/system," and even then I would disagree, since there are many analogies that can be just as contrived as any bad metaphor.

I think a better explanation is that analogy is a figure of speech comparing two relationships (i.e., x is to y as b is to c), whereas metaphor is a transfer of the associations of one word to another word (e.g., rose of salt). Of course, metaphor is often used to describe "figurative language" in general, which is merely an imprecision of our language, I'm afraid.

Anyway, I'm obsessed with poetry and therefore cannot have anyone denigrating metaphors; "For to articulate sweet sounds together/Is to work harder than all these, and yet/Be thought an idler by the noisy set/Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen/the martyrs call the world."

Now, to the point of this topic:

Yeah, I think I do speak in simile/metaphor often, and I definitely speak in figurative language all the time. It's like, a staple of my speech. Although, actually, metaphors and figurative language are a staple of everyone's speech; they just don't know they're metaphors/figurative language. Instead, if you're being pretentious you call them "colloquialisms" or "idiomatic phrases," while if you're being normal you call them "sayings" or "turns of phrase" or some such (not that even "turn of phrase" is a metaphor, as phrases do not typically turn).

Okay, that's my little speech for the day.

[1981slater]

Metaphors: Ni
Analogies: Ti

[Gilly]

Personally I think of a metaphor as a way of creating a congruous subjective/emotional response in another person by making use of an abstraction, so I would say Ni.

[Slacker]

Arguing about the difference between metaphors and analogies:

[717495]

I don't think its type divided. However I think NFs typically use both metaphors and analogies more often. Especially metaphors; ethical types are the big poetry freaks.

[Nexus]

Personally I think of a metaphor as a way of creating a congruous subjective/emotional response in another person by making use of an abstraction, so I would say Ni.

I agree with subjectivism and metaphor, so I say /

[Blaze]

Arguing about the difference between metaphors and analogies: