"michalchik@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
" <michalchik@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>I remember always hating the song "love is something..." which had the
>following analogy,
>
>"its just like a magic penny
>hold it tight and you won't have any
>lend it, spend it, give it away,
>and it comes right back to you."
>
>There is no such thing as a magic penny and nobody has an experience
>with one, so using it as an example clarifies nothing and in fact
>confuses the situation since people start trying to incor****ate thier
>knowlege of ordinary pennies into their understanding.
One needs no magic pennies to understand the poem. One does need to
know what a real penny is, and how it can be used.
Poetry has the tendency to try to say things in ways which sound nice
and elegant, and which make perfect sense if you see the words in the
right way. "Like" here is actually used to stress similarity. "Magic"
is used to stress that the analogy can be understood in terms of the
real world object, but has contrasts that differ from the real world
object in ways that might seem contrary to reason.
Reread those words a little differently, and you might like the song
better:
Love is like a penny in that one can speak of it using the same action
words which carry analogical meaning: one can hold it tight, lend it,
spend it, and give it away.
Love is NOT like a penny (and hence magical) in that these actions
have the opposite effect as with a physical object - if you hold it
tight, you soon don't have it, whereas if you lend it, spend it or
give it away, it comes back to you.
But that phrasing, while it perhaps makes more sense, is not poetic at
all.
Sounds like an excellent example for studying the use of figurative
language.
lojbab
Bob LeChevalier - artificial linguist; genealogist
lojbab@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lojban language www.lojban.org
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