At the online sales conference I attended today, we were bombared with a bewildering multitude of acronyms and abbreviations. There was much talk of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) – even knowing what these abbreviations stand for doesn’t necessarily help you to understand them, in some cases.

An acronym is a pronounceable name made up of a series of initial letters or parts of words, such as NATO (North Altantic Treaty Organisation). Acro- is a combining form meaning something at a height, summit, top, tip, beginning or end. It comes from the Greek ακρος (akros) – extreme, topmost.

An abbreviation is a shortened or contracted form of a word or phrase used in place of the whole. Abbreviate comes from the Latin Latin abbreviāre from the Latin brevis – brief.

isogloss, noun = a line drawn on a map around the area in which a linguistic feature is to be found, such as a particular pronunciation of a given word

Origin: from the Greek ισος (isos) – equal, and γλωσσα (glossa) – tongue/language.

Other words with similar meanings include: isolex, an isogloss for a particular item of vocabulary, and isophone, an isogloss for a particular feature of pronunciation.

The distribution of names of carbonated beverages in the USA can be divided using isolexes – in some areas the usual name for such drinks is soda, in some it’s pop, and in others it’s cola or coke. In the UK we call such drinks pop or soft drinks.

The phenomenon of isoglosses is discussed in the Linguistics books I’m currently reading and I like the sound of the word. This word, and the related words, also illustrate one of the advantages of being familiar with the Greek roots of English words. Now I know that iso(s) means equal, words using this prefix are slightly easier to understand.

The title of today’s post is an example of a metaphor from Shakespeare’s As You Like It. The full version is:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players
They have their exits and their entrances;

According to Wikipedia, a metaphor, from the Greek: μεταφεριν (metapherin) – “to carry something across” or “transfer”, is a rhetorical trope defined as a direct comparison between two or more seemingly unrelated subjects. A trope is a figure of speech consisting of a play on words.

There are a number of different types of metaphors:

Extended metaphors, which set up a principal subject with several subsidiary subjects or comparisons. The above quote from Shakespeare is a good example of this.

Epic or Homeric similes are extended metaphors containing details about the vehicle that are not, in fact, necessary for the metaphoric purpose. An example of this from Black Adder is: “This is a crisis. A large crisis. In fact, if you’ve got a moment, it’s a twelve-story crisis with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeting throughout, 24-hour porterage and an enormous sign on the roof saying ‘This Is a Large Crisis’.”

Mixed metaphors combine parts of two or more unrelated metaphors together creating a nonsensical but often amusing image. For example, “look before you bark up the wrong end of the stick”, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it spoil the broth” and “They’re biting the hand of the goose that laid the golden egg”, from Samuel Goldwyn.

Dead metaphors started life as metaphors but over time have lost their metaphoric nature and become ordinary expressions. Examples include “to grasp a idea”, “arm of a chair” and “leg of a table”.

Have you mixed an metaphors or heard any metaphoric mixing being committed recently?