Metaphors are used to convey one idea in a manner that is more easily understandable by a human, by attributing features to something that should not be taken literally. You may have noticed while using this strange language of ours that there are many metaphoric phrases that include parts of the body, such as head, eyes and neck.<\/p>\n
Take the phrase \u2018head of the table\u2019, for instance. If the table were a person (and since we have named the upright posts of a table \u2018legs\u2019, that is a little easier to imagine), then the \u2018head\u2019 of that table would be the prime position, just as the actual head is on the human body. Similarly, you would refer to the person who is in charge of a faculty as the \u2018head\u2019 of that department, or the student performing the best in a group as the \u2018head of the class\u2019.<\/p>\n
Why do we do this? For starters, we all have a human body (unless, you\u2019re reading this in the far distant future where we\u2019re all just brains in jars\u2014if that is the case, welcome), so using a body part as a metaphor for something else is an easy image for everyone to conjure. When referring to a group of people or things, the word \u2018body\u2019 is often used, to give the impression that the group as a whole is important as a single entity, as is a body. An arm isn\u2019t just good by itself, for instance, just as the first book of the Encyclopaedia Britannica by itself is also not much use. The collective is valuable as a whole, as is the human body. We humans often try to explain the world through the metaphor of our own bodies, it\u2019s just been the way we\u2019ve evolved our languages from grunts to perfectly formed sentences.<\/p>\n
There are many phrases that include parts of the body, such as:<\/p>\n
\n Eye of the storm
\n Having one\u2019s hands tied
\n To stick one\u2019s neck out
\n On one hand\/on the other hand
\n To put one\u2019s best foot forward
\n To let one\u2019s hair down
\n Something costs an arm and a leg
\n Get to the heart of the problem\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\nAll these phrases include body parts to paint a better picture of the original meaning. For instance, the eye of the storm is generally physically circular, as is an eyeball; having one\u2019s hands tied conveys the meaning of being physically held back or having limits imposed upon you; and if you have ever had long hair tied up all day, the feeling of letting it hang loose at the end of the day is relaxing, hence feeling free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Phrases that include body parts to better explain the world around us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":576,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions\/576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}