How Conceptual Metaphors are Stunting Web Innovation: Found on Mashable

January 13, 2010January 12, 2011

This article illustrates the importance of language in all spheres of life. How we create metaphor is a metaphor itself for the process of invention and discovery. We are either looking backward to name what we want to create for the future, or we look at the world around us and make analogies. This article explores some outdated terms we still apply to the web, such as “documents.”

http://mashable.com/2010/01/13/conceptual-metaphors/

I’m reminded of “Advice to a Prophet” by Richard Wilbur, which has several stanzas on the creation of figurative language:

Speak of the world’s own change. Though we cannot conceive
Of an undreamt thing, we know to our cost
How the dreamt cloud crumbles, the vines are blackened by frost
How the view alters. We could believe,

Published by Christine

Christine Swint’s poems have appeared in Calyx, Birmingham Poetry Review, Slant, a Journal of Poetry, Tampa Review, Heron Tree, Ekphrasis, and others. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets, and she has won first place prizes from the Georgia Poetry Society and Agnes Scott College. Her first collection, Swimming This, was published in 2015 by FutureCycle Press. She teaches first-year composition at a metro-Atlanta university and writes about poetry, art, hiking, and yoga at Balanced on the Edge, https://balancedonedge.blog Twitter @christine_swint View all posts by Christine

2 thoughts on “How Conceptual Metaphors are Stunting Web Innovation: Found on Mashable”

Julie says:
January 14, 2010 at 10:43 am

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The article is very interesting. I never thought about “stream” as a passive type of internet metaphor, but that is true. We jump in. We jump out. But we can’t control it. Thanks for the link!

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Michelle says:
January 15, 2010 at 11:26 am

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What a beautiful photograph! Thanks so much for the article link.

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