How are you with understanding metaphors?

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You might like the Word Detective, Evan Morris: http://www.word-detective.com. He has a humorous column in which readers send in questions about weird words like "flummox" and phrases like "riding hell-bent for leather", one of the most bizarre idioms I've ever read.

Many English language idioms, and expressions, are rooted in former times and the context is lost. But the expressions are still used anyway.

Many have to do with sailing ships, or subsistence farming.

The one animal that figures in more idioms than any other are horses.
Riding rough shod, carriage-before-the-horse, horse of a different color,locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen,dark horse candidate,and "Hobson's choice"( mr. Hobson was a guy who rented horses in London in the 19th Century), all come to mind.

"Getting your goat" has to do with race horses (they would transport thoroughbred horse with a live goat to be the horse's campanion. Rival horse racers might steal the goat to upset your horse so the horse would run worse. Hense "getting your goat". Countless expressions like that made sense in context, but dont out of context, but are still used anyway.

Some expressions NEVER made sense like "head over heels in love". Isn't your head NORMALLY "over" your heels? Shouldnt it be "heels over head in love"?

Some are hit or miss with me. Oddly, the more esoteric, the easier I grasp it.

But, I never metaphor that I didn't like....

Buh Dump Pssssshhhhhhh

Thank you, I just bookmarked the link

I always imagined head over heels in love meant you were tumbling down a hill and your head kept going under and then over your heels. I know, that also makes no sense at all.

LOL, I love the imagery of a good metaphor. Associating images and stories with concepts is natural for me.

Why curse the dark when you can turn on a light.
How many Jewish grandmothers does it take to change a light bulb?
None, I will just sit her in the dark.

Maybe I'm dense...but that just seems obvious in both meaning and application. Or am I missing something and just too danged literal this morning?

Because people frequently are afraid of the dark, yet glory in the fear, somehow.

That's how I might interpret this.

Thanks, I always thought "Hobson's choice" was the English equivalent of a "Faustian bargain."

"Getting your goat" is especially relevant to me.

Nobbled and knackered are other fun English words.

Exactly.

So why call that situation "head over heels" when you're normal state when walking around is to have your "head over your heels"?

I always interpreted it as sloth. The people who like to complain but are just too lazy to get up and do the simple thing.

One that always gets me in trouble in the overly PC world: Call a spade a spade.
Now, let's get this in perspective, I lived part time on a farm when I would visit my mother during the summers. And I was told to get the spade one day. I came back with a shovel. Got lectured about the spade vs shovel thing, but also dunned for being stupid. I guess my stepfather and mother thought I should have been born with all this crap in my head because until that point, nobody else explained it. But, as I was informed, "That's why we call a spade a spade." And, he was the most racist SOB you could imagine. But spade was never a name he or his family used to denigrate people of color. They had other words for that. So, in this case, he was quite literal.

That being said, most metaphors I use are just that I know what they mean, even if I don't understand them. I just learn how people use them. Then I parrot their actions. Head over heels is also a perfect example of that. Wearing the heart on the sleeve had to be explained as well as a whole host of others.

Yeah...that's what they used to call black people, unfortunately, in the old days: A "spade." It comes from the card suit.

This isn't a metaphor, but I remember as a kid hearing women talking about how many karats their diamond rings had. I thought it meant that the diamonds had little tiny carrots inside. Of course that made no sense to me, but it was an interesting image.

Took a few years to realize I was wrong.

a metaphor is like the dusty horn of a long dead rhino.
it has no place in a modern refrigerator and it is not a topic often discussed among eskimos.

as you can see metaphors are like grains of rice that resemble 1959 model Cadillacs to me.

HA! Happened to me too when I was young. But, as I am want to do, I had to ask because I have to know. Got a few laughs at the young kid being funny. But at least I did learn.
Yeah, found that out later. But, that's what's so odd. This man and his family were the classic southern racists. But, none of them ever called a black person a spade. Lots of other colorful things, but never that. But, for them, a spade was the pointy thing you dig with and a shovel was the square thing you scooped with and moved crap around with. I am being literal when I say crap. They had horses.

It was probably a term which was used more often in northern urban areas.