How changing the metaphors we use can change the way we think | Aeon Essays

We automatically think in metaphors. We talk of ideas as illuminating and bright, fizzing and incisive, or flat and dull. We see our world in spatial terms—rising and falling, moving forward or back. We speak metaphorically, too—we ‘ride’ bicycles, though not cars; we ‘harness’ ideas to a new purpose; we let our imaginations ‘take flight’. Biologic

The metaphorical use of words – making allusions to novel contexts, drawing an analogy between two completely unrelated things or contexts

Often, these shifts in vision need new concepts as well as descriptive methods.