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If you put any trust in proverbs, you already know that time heals, steals, and flies. And you're equally aware that time is something we

all make and take, save and spend, keep, waste, kill,and lose. Habitually, almost without thinking, we explain our relationship to time throughmetaphors--

many different metaphors.

In More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor  (University of Chicago Press, 1989), George Lakoff and Mark Turner remind us that

"Metaphor isn't just for poets; it's in ordinary language and is the principal way we have of conceptualizing abstract concepts like life, death, and time."

So whether we're spending it or running out of it, we deal with time (and time deals with us) metaphorically.

  Time Is a Circus 

Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away.

(Ben Hecht)

  Time Is a Gypsy 

Time, you old gipsy man,

Will you not stay,

Put up your caravan

Just for one day?

(Ralph Hodgson, "Time, You Old Gipsy Man")

  Time Is a Thief  

Prince, I warn you, under the rose,

Time is the thief you cannot banish.

These are my daughters, I suppose.

But where in the world did the children vanish?

(Phyllis McGinley, "Ballad of Lost Objects")

  Time Is a Trap 

But that's where I am, there's no escaping it. Time's a trap, I'm caught in it.

(Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale)

 Time Is a Reef  

Time is the reef upon which all our frail mystic ships are wrecked.

(Noel Coward, Blithe Spirit )

  Time Is a Spinner 

She tried to discover what kind of woof Old Time, that greatest and longest established Spinner of all, would weave from the threads he had already spun into a woman. But his factory is a

secret place, his work is noiseless, and his Hands are mutes.

(Charles Dickens, Hard Times)

  Time Is a Storm 

Time is a storm in which we are all lost. Only inside the convolutions of the storm itself shall we find our directions.

(William Carlos Williams, Introduction, Selected Essays)

  Time Is a Stream 

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.

(Henry David Thoreau, Walden)

  Time Is a River 

Time is a flowing river. Happy those who allow themselves to be carried, unresisting, with the current. They float through easy days. They live, unquestioning, in the moment.

(Christopher Morley, Where the Blue Begins)

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  Time Is an Equal-Opportunity Employer 

Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours; scientists can't invent new

minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire

tomorrow.

(Denis Waitely, The Joy of Working)

  Time Is a Miser 

Old Time, in whose banks we deposit our notes

Is a miser who always wants guineas for groats;

He keeps all his customers still in arrears

By lending them minutes and charging them years.

(Oliver Wendell Holmes, "Our Banker")

  Time Is a Coin 

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.

(Carl Sandburg)

  Time Is Money 

Yesterday is a canceled check; tomorrow is a promissory note; today is the only cash you have, so spend it wisely.

(Kay Lyons)

  Time Is a Fixed Income 

Time is a fixed income and, as with any income, the real problem facing most of us is how to live successfully within our daily allotment.

(Margaret B. Johnstone)

  Time Is a School and a Fire  

What am I now that I was then?

May memory restore again and againThe smallest color of the smallest day:

Time is the school in which we learn,

Time is the fire in which we burn.

(Delmore Schwartz, "Calmly We Walk Through This April’s Day") 

  Time Is a Dressmaker 

Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations.

(Faith Baldwin, Face Toward the Spring)

  Time Is a Prison 

Initially, I was unaware that time, so boundless at first blush, was a prison.

(Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory)

  Time Is an Arrow 

Time is an irreversible arrow, and we can never return to the self that we sloughed off in childhood or adolescence. The man trying to wear youth's carefree clothing, the wo man costuming

her emotions in doll's dresses --these are pathetic figures who want to reverse time's arrow.

(Joshua Loth Liebman, "Renunciation of Immaturity," Peace of Mind )

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  Time Is a Teacher 

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.

(Hector Berlioz)

  Time Is a Gift 

Time is a gift, given to you,

given to give you the time you need

the time you need to have the time of your life.

(Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth)

Time is indeed a "versatile performer," as Franklin P. Jones once observed. "It flies, marches on, heals all wounds, runs out, and will tell."

http://grammar.about.com/od/rhetoricstyle/a/x.htm 

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http://www.xamuel.com/ten-metaphors-for-time/ 

Ten Metaphors for Time An Article from Xamuel.com

« Ninja Koans 

Search Engine Optimization: The New Superstition »

Time is… 

… A river . We navigate it in our boats, having some minor ability to resist the currents but ultimately bound ever forward by the waves. Perhaps the river

leads to a tranquil sea, or perhaps a violent waterfall– we’ll never know ’til we reach the end. One of the features of the river is that there is water

ahead– the future– and water behind– the past– and the water underneath the boat is only a fleeting fraction of the total system.

… A thread . In more than one sense of the word. The linear, one-dimensional nature of the thread captures the immovable momentum of time, and at the

same time, this thread is the fabric of history. Like the river, any single point in the thread is infinitesimal, surrounded before and behind by the vast

unknowable what-is-to-come and what-has-been.

… A moment . Like the river, except now the boat is anchored down in one present moment, and it’s the water and t he land which are moving. This is an

enlightened perspective, acknowledging that there will never come a day which is “the future”, nor has there ever been a day which was “the past”. There

is only the Now.

… A predator . “This thing all things devours: Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel; Grinds hard stones to meal; Slays king, ruins town; And

beats high mountains down.” Of course you already know the answer to this cunning riddle of Tolkien. Ultimately everything wh ich has a beginning, has

an end, and in time it will fade from all memory.

… An arrow . The arrow metaphor emphasizes fate and momentum. This is a non- deterministic perspective: the dart is already released; there’s no

recalling it, or changing its path. The arrow also symbolizes speed. Years fly by in a second while fate works its course.

… A spacetime dimension. Relative to a fixed origin and coordinate system, points have three spatial coordinates. Time adds sophistication to this model

by adding a fourth coordinate, thus it is the fourth dimension. But while particles trace exotic paths in the first three dimensions, everything has an awful

unchanging constant velocity in the fourth. (Things get more complicated when the theory of relativity is factored in!)

…Money . Through this lens, the days of our lives are an allowance we invest, for profit or ruin. Every moment is an opportunity for restless wealth-

building. If only you could live forever, you could eventually be the wealthiest person in the world!

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… A race. The more you do, the more is left to do; this is the busy man’s metaphor. Pink Floyd sang: “You run and you run to catch up with the sun but

it’s sinking… Racing around to come up behind you again… The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older… Shorter of b reath and one day closer

to death!”  

… A prison. This is simultaneously the prisoner’s metaphor, and the metaphor of the man who is truly free. There’s too much time and you struggle to fill

it all. At first glance, this is the polar opposite of the “race” perspecti ve– but on closer inspection, they’re two different ways of dealing with the same root

poison: lack of “right action”, lack of knowing what is the one thing you need to do.  

… A gift . In any case, time is a precious gift. We enjoy the experience of the river. We marvel at the beautiful tapestries woven from the thread. We live

our lives in the moment, the Now. The predator devours the old so that the new can have a chance. The arrow guides us swiftly toward our ultimate

destinies. Spacetime analysis gives us an intellectual understanding of the cosmos. We fill the world with lofty wealth using the time we are given. Even

the race and the prison serve to make us stronger, conditioning us until we are ready at last to do what we really need to do.

FURTHER READING 

Ten Metaphors for… 

…Life. 

…Love. 

…Death. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 25, 2010

 

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http://alexholcombe.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/metaphors-for-time-in-english/ 

ptionalopen science, open access, meta-science, perception, neuroscience, … 

with 5 comments

Time is harder for humans to understand than is space. Our visual systems abound with machinery for processing extensions of space. A

continuum of locations are processed in parallel, their spatial relations apprehended without cognitive effort. But for the most part, the mind

represents time poorly. Our perception experience is of a very short duration- the specious present. The past is a an amalgamation of events that

can be recollected, but we don’t grasp the whole series of moments together as a continuous thread.

Metaphors can make obscure material intuitive- including thoughts about time- especially if the metaphor turns time into space.

"Chasing Time", a clock by J.P. Meulendijks

George Lakoff and his colleagues compiled a long list of common metaphors in English. I don’t know whether this list was ever formally published,

but it’s floating around the web. For time, they list the below. I’ve made a few explanatory notes in brackets. 

TIME IS SOMETHING MOVING TOWARD YOU [time-moving metaphor]

“Thursday passed without incident.” [Usually future events are in front, and past events are behind]

Special case : Foreseeable Future Events are Up [I don't understand why they say "future events are up", since the examples seem to indicate that

future events start below and then move upward]

“Upcoming events. What’s coming up this week? What events are up ahead?” 

TIME IS A LANDSCAPE WE MOVE THROUGH [ego-moving metaphor]

“Thanksgiving is looming on the horizon.” 

TIME IS MONEY: ”She spends her time unwisely.” 

TIME IS A RESOURCE: ”We’re almost out of time.” 

(BOUNDED) TIME IS A CONTAINER: ”He did it in three minutes.” 

TIME IS A PURSUER: ”Time will catch up with him.” 

TIME IS A CHANGER: ”Time heals all wounds.” 

A SCHEDULE IS A MOVING OBJECT: ”He was behind (the) schedule.” 

from George Lakoff, Jane Espenson, and Alan Schwartz (1991 unpublished manuscript). Master Metaphor List. 2nd edition, second draft copy. 

Studying these metaphors and other linguistic artifacts can illuminate the limitations of our processing of matters temporal. Recently I’ve been

wondering why we say “all the time” as in “getting better all the time” rather than “all of time” or “everywhen”. I haven’t been able to find any

literature on this (please tell me if you know of any) and I hope to post about it later.

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