WHAT'S A META PHOR?

Bill, aka Professor Sir William, was over today and stayed for lunch after he and Iain had a walk to the Whangie.

We got talking about the use of metaphors in our language. They are good and useful tools of language to describe things but I find they are used a lot in the media and also in science where they are presented as fact.

My particular example was the use of Big Bang for the theory of how the universe started. It was neither big nor a bang .... at which point Bill pipes up: "Ah, of course! It was my old professor - Professor Fred Hoyle - at Cambridge (who lectured in Bill's class for Applied Mathematics) who first coined the phrase." Furthermore, Bill explained, that the phrase came about because he was of the opposite opinion and referred to the idea to which he was in opposition as their "Big Bang" theory.


Indeed, I see from googling there is this video here of an interview with him. It is just what Bill was talking about. I cannot get the video to embed in this blog but going over to youtube is perfectly OK.