New Zealand has been coming to a grinding halt to watch the America’s Cup. [Is today going to be the day?!] The more I have watched it, the more the commentators’ metaphors leaped out at me (OK you spotted that metaphor!)
[Update: 9:40am – no, today is not the day. Oracle has now won 7 races in a row, going from 8-1 to 8-8 (8-10 on the water) and the America’s Cup will be won on the last possible race!
Upate: 8:46am Thursday 26 Sep. TeamUSA Oracle won the America’s Cup. Congratulations! A comeback from 1-8 to 9-8]
It fascinates me how agile people are with metaphors in sport – and how clumsy when it comes to religion, spirituality, and faith. Everyone just takes for granted littering the water with metaphors when it comes to sailing – but theists, atheists, and agnostics so often seem to take metaphors literally or need to remind people “It’s a metaphor!” when it comes to religion and spirituality! [Remember Bosco’s law of metaphor? Does it even apply?].
These are just a few metaphors that I noted in only one session on the couch sailing:
Kick this one off
Groundhog day
Climb
Call the shots
They jump out
Sailing a little bit deeper
Ride this
Water is slack
Push them back out
Close to the wind
Light air
Top of the course
Oracle is inside New Zealand
In sqeezing mode
Pinch
Height on the climb
Putting pressure on the Kiwi boat
Running out of runway
Nearly had a piece of Oracle
Jump at the start
They’ve shut the gate on Team New Zealand
They’ve got a squirt of pressure
The wind gods didn’t play their game
Lying down
Sailed into a hole
You would reel them in
Pressure is king
Dying breeze
Make inroads
Push
Get the job done
Can New Zealand get over the bow of Oracle?
Wind shadow
Bottom of the course
Keep chipping away
Run that down
Leap out
Lady luck smile on them
Team has taken advantage with both hands
Rolling back
Fighting like crazy
Fallen off the boil
Game of snakes and ladders
Solid win
The door is slammed shut
I wonder how many of our common sayings originated as nautical terms – would they still be a metaphor when used in a nautical setting again? For example “sailing close to the wind”
Great question, Claudia. I think I would have to look at it saying by saying. Does the wind have a position that one can, in a nautical setting, be close to? Or far from? It appears a metaphor to me (note that, of course, “appear” is metaphorical!) Blessings.
Bosco, if we’re “Living in a Metaphorical World,” does that make me a “Metaphorical girl”? 😉
(apologies to Madonna)
🙂