Looking back on what now seems like the distant past, but wasn't, let's use real life political coverage to demonstrate how you can become more frequently-quoted.
See the power of word pictures as you read on.
Remember that the specific detail proves the general conclusion. Generalizations make people go on mental vacations.
For starters, a political spin meister said…
``Al Gore may be cross as a snapping turtle.''
``Governor Bush will be madder than a rained-on rooster in Florida.''
As Dan Rather inadvertently proved in his excitable election night coverage, you can get people's attention with word pictures. Rather's comparisions became more wild and weird as the night wore on. Media columnist, Briam Lambert later wrote, "From the get-go, he spouted aphorisms and mangled metaphors like a West Texas gusher." The next day I joined several other current and former reporters in trading "Ratherisms" uttered in just that night. They include:
``There's no way Gore can win without California. It's like trying to scratch his ear with his elbow.''
[Because on the West Coast you have] ``the big burrito out there in California.''
``He spent money like he had shorted Microsoft.''
``This race is tight. Like a too-small bathing suit on a too-long ride home from the
beach.''
``[George W. Bush] swept through the South like a tornado through a trailer park.''
[And] ``Bush has run through Dixie like a big wheel through a cotton field.''
[Presumably referring to bottles]: ``They both have champagne on ice. But after the night is over, they might need a pickax to open them.''
Boring, Dan Rather wasn't that night. But there is a valuable lesson in his use of language. Start sprinkling your conversation and emails with apt metaphors and similies that stand out in peoples' minds like white cat hair on black velvet. Why? Because you'll become more quotable. What will happen? Others who hear or read your words will instinctively repeat your characterizations, even those people who violently disagree with you. You can create the playing field upon which a person, product, idea, situation or issue is discussed by others.
"Metaphors are halfway between the unintelligible and the commonplace," according to Aristotle. He wrote in Poetics, "The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor." It is "a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars."
More prosaicallly, Funk & Wagnalls Standard Desk Dictionary characterizes a metaphor as "a figure of speech in which one object is likened to another by speaking of it as if it were that other."
When you use similes or metaphors you paint the perspective by which you want others to see slant on your story. That can be a powerful effect. Especially if your characterization is more vivid that others'.
Whoever most vividly describes a situation usually determines how others see it, discuss it and act upon it. You can paint a person in heroic, humble, silly or even stupid comparisions.
Be careful. If your vivid image is negative you can have a poisonous power. Their first instinct will be to defensively retort, I am NOT (repeating your phrase)" thus deepening the stain of your word picture into the consciousness of all who hear them react.
Here's some ways to see how you can create powerful images:
~ ~ In "Metaphors We Live By", a book written for the layman, linguist George Lakoff and philosopher Mark Johnson suggests that "metaphor is pervasive in everyday life." They wrote, "When one says, 'He dropped dead' or 'He's at the peak of health', one is using the orientational metaphor that we live by: Health and life are up; sickness and death are down."
~ ~ Patrick Gunkel, a neuroscientist formerly at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was asked by a student to be interviewed for a classroom project. In preparation for the
interview, Patrick came up with an imaginative list of metaphors for the brain, which included:
The Brain is a:
Spider web
Because it:
is delicate, minimal, hypersensitive, and connects many things. It responds instantly and simultaneously to outside events.
The Brain is a:
Prism
Because it:
breaks white light (seemingly ONE thing) into many colors
The Brain is a:
Fermenter
Because it:
is like a vat of yeast which allows things to grow and change
~ ~ Indiana University English professor Bryan M. Kopp, in his (book??) wrote students, ""Metaphors create new meanings; they allow you to write about feelings, thoughts, things, experiences, etc. for which there are no easy words. When a child looks at the sky and sees a jet trail but does not have the word "contrail" (maybe you don't know this word either), she says 'Mommy, look at the scar in the sky!' Similarly, when computer software developers created boxes on the screen as a user interface, they needed a new language; the result was windows."
~ ~
Note how easy it is to remember these familiar descriptions, as you contemplate creating your own about a person or upcoming situation:
quick as a wink
slow as a snail
dumb as dirt
hard as a rock
soft as eider down
tight as a drum
high as a kite
playful as a kitten
spineless as a jellyfish
~~
Let me close this article where we began, with a quote from Dan Rather, much later that infamous election night when he was running on less gas than an Oklahoma teen-ager bringing home Daddy's pickup. A slightly punchy Dan said, ``This election swings like one of those pendulum things.''
What's really scary is that most of the time, we know what he means. Discover more ways to say it better at http://www.sayitbetter.com
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