Plant Metaphors

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Chapter 5

• Plant Metaphors
• and
• Food Metaphors

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Vocabulary Plus A Source-Based
Approachwww.ablongman.com/nilsen

• By Don L. F. Nilsen
• And Alleen Pace Nilsen

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Ambiguous Fruit
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Farming and Gardening MetaphorsHay Straw
Stick Fruit
Hay is hewn (cut) Hayseed (hick) Haywire Hit the hay (go to bed) Make hay while the sun shines Draw straws Last straw Strewn Soda straw Straw boss Straw that broke the camels back Straw vote Strawberries Drum sticks Fiddle sticks Glue stick Lipstick Stick of gum Stick of wood Stickers (things that stick) Fructose Fruit of the Loom (underwear) Fruitful Fruition (Nilsen Nilsen 107-112)
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Grain
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Straw/Strewn
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Cultivating MetaphorsMuck Cultivate Thresh
Grain
Muck (mud, manure, straw) Mucking around Political muck raking Cultivated (sophisticated) Cultivating talents Cultivator Cults Culture High or low threshold On the threshold of something Threshing around Grainy film Granite Granulated peanuts Hand grenade Ingrained Pomegranate (Nilsen Nilsen 107-110)
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Alleen and Tree Animals
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Personification
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TreesBranch Trunk Log Leaves
Branch library Branching out Family tree Out on a limb Tree diagram Elephant trunk Human trunk Steamer trunk Trunk call (British) As easy as rolling off a log Backlog Log book Log cabin Logging onto a computer Log jam Logrolling Aluminum foil Foliage Foliated rocks Literary foil (Nilsen Nilsen 110-112)
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Dr. PepperA Pun
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Vegetables
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Personified Vegetables
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Explain the Connections

• Bush, Bushy Hair, Ambush, Bushings, Bushwacked,
  Beating around the bush
• Deadwood, Firing deadwood
• Fruit, Fruitful discussion
• Leaf, Table Leaf, Leaflet
• Mushroom, Mushroom cloud
• Papyrus, Paper
• Plant, Planting someone in the audience, Planting
  an idea in someones head
• Stem, Stemware glasses
• Stump, Pencil stump, Leg stump, Stumping for
  votes
• Tulip bulb, Light bulb
• (Nilsen Nilsen 113-114)

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More Plant MetaphorsField Hedge Stem
Center fielder (baseball) Farm team Farming out children Field Marshall Out in left field Professional field Hedge hog Hedgerow (trees) Hedges (maybe) To hedge a bet From stem to stern Pipe Stem Stem-cell research Stem of a watch Stem ware (Nilsen Nilsen 128)
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Spring PlantsGiuseppe Arcimboldo
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Explain the Metaphors

• Blooming idiot
• Branching out
• Budding genius
• Fertile imagination
• Putting down roots
• Lotus Spread Sheet
• Young sprout
• (Nilsen Nilsen 113)

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Plant-Color Metaphors

• Apricot
• Black Forest Cake
• Cherry red
• Coffee
• Orange
• Peach
• Strawberry blond
• (Nilsen Nilsen 116)

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Good and Bad Food Hot and Cold Food
Good and bad taste Old fashioned taste ------------- Bitter experience Sour experience Spicy experience Sweet experience Giving someone a cold shoulder Hot number Quitting cold turkey ---------- Peas porridge hot Pease porridge cold Pease porridge in the pot Nine days old (Nilsen Nilsen 117)
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The Potato Family

• Well, Girl Potato and Boy Potato had eyes for
  each other.
• They finally got married and had a little sweet
  potato, which they called Yam.
• When they told Yam the facts of life they warned
  her about going out and getting half-baked, and
  become a Hot Potato, and end up with some Tater
  Tots.

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• Yam said not to worry. No Spud will get me into
  the sack and make a rotten potato out of me.
• But on the other hand, I also wont stay home
  and become a Couch Potato.
• Yam exercised so that she wouldnt become skinny
  like her Shoestring cousins.
• When she went to Europe she was told to watch out
  for those hard-boiled guys from Ireland.

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• She was also to watch out for the greasy French
  Fries.
• When she went out West, she was told to watch out
  for the Indians, so she wouldnt get scalloped.
• Yam worked hard to be high class, because she
  didnt want to become just another Frito Lay.
• She went to Idaho Potato University so that when
  she graduated shed be in the Chips.

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• But in spite of all this, one day Yam came home
  and announced that she was going to marry Tom
  Brokaw.
• Yams parents were mortified.
• You cant marry Tom Brokaw, they said, because
  hes just a
• Hes just a
• Hes just a
• A COMMONTATER!

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Hole MilkA Pun
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Sweetness

• Honey
• Sugar and sugar daddy
• Sickeningly sweet novel
• Sweet cheeks
• Sweet lemon (ct. Sour grapes)
• Sweet Pee (Olive Oils daughter)
• Sweet potatoes
• Sweet and sour pork
• Sweet spot (tennis racket or golf club)
• Sweety pie
• Sweetheart
• (Nilsen Nilsen 117)

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Literal vs. MetaphoricalSour Bitter Salty
Sour cream Sour grapes Sour note (in music) Sourball (candy) Sauerkraut Sourpuss Ascerbic wit Bitter battle Bittersweet chocolate Embittered person Stay to the bitter end To ascerbate something (make it worse) Bonneville Salt Flats Earn ones salt (pay) Old salt (sailor) Salad Salami Salsa Salt of the earth Salty story Sauce Sausage Working in the salt mines (Nilsen Nilsen 118-119)
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Egg Metaphors
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Egg Potential
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Egg PlantA Pun?
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Eggs Meat Apples Bread
Egg carton mattress Eggshell (color) Hatch a plan Hatchback (car) Oval office (cf. F loeuf ovaries) Robins egg blue Baloney Beef up Carnival Mardi Gras Meat and potatoes Minced meat Nut meats Pork barrel legislation SPAM (SPiced hAM) To beef about something The Big Apple The Little Apple (Manhattan, KS) Macintosh Pomegranate Pomme de terre (potato) Pommel horse Pommel (on saddle) Pomona, CA Bread Pan (tautology) Breadline Breadwinner Companion Company Lady (hlaf diga) Lord (hlaf weard) Panatela cigar Pantry (Nilsen Nilsen 119-121)
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Explain the following cooking metaphors

• Cooking someones goose
• Getting embroiled in a family quarrel
• Grilling a witness
• Grub, Grubstake Grubby
• Mincing words
• Parched thirst
• Peeling off three twenties
• Raising the heat on gangs
• Resentment simmering and then coming to a boil
• Salt and pepper beard
• Scuttlebut, scuttle a ship scuttle a project
• Slicing a golf ball
• (Nilsen Nilsen 106, 123)

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Explain the following

• He bit off more than he could chew.
• He ate it up, hook, line and sinker.
• He had to be spoon fed.
• She has a lot on her plate.
• Shes all sweetness and light.
• That left a bitter taste in her mouth.
• Thats a fine kettle of fish.
• (Nilsen Nilsen 124)

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GroundingExplain what the following have in
common

• Meat roast-Celebrity roast
• Chocolate mousse-Mousse for your hair
• Gravy-gravy train
• Grease-Grease the movie
• Honey-honey moon
• Red herring sardine-red herring metaphor
• Pasta-paste
• Hash-to hash out a problem
• Spice-spicy movie
• Parched corn-parchment
• (Nilsen Nilsen 106)

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Explain the following Proverbs

• Dont put all of your eggs in one basket.
• Dont put all of your Basques in one exit.
• He jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.
• He spilled the beans.
• Hes nutty as a fruit cake.
• He wants everything, from soup to nuts.
• Its as easy as pie.
• Shes upper crust.
• Shes buttering him up.
• Its like comparing apples and oranges.
• Life is a box of chocolates.
• Thats how the cookie crumbles.
• Theres no accounting for taste.
• You have to crack some eggs to make an omelet.
• (Nilsen Nilsen 122)

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!Edgy Food Metaphors

• The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice
• Cottage cheese thighs (overweight person)
• Cracker (WASP)
• Cut the cheese
• Pop the cherry
• Rice burner (Asian car)
• Wiener
• (Nilsen Nilsen 105)

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!!Chauncy (the) Gardnerin Jerzy Kozinskis Being
There

• It is possible for everything to grow strong and
  there is plenty of room for growth, but first
  some things must wilt and die.
• Some plants do well in the sun and some do well
  in the shade.
• As long as the roots are not severed, all is well
  and will be well in the garden.
• In the garden we have spring and summer, but then
  we get fall and winter.
• (Kozinski 106)

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!!!Other Materials

• Kozinski, Jerzy. Being There (a DVD starring
  Peter Sellers), 1979.
• My Blackberrys not working.
• http//www.flixxy.com/my-blackberry-is-not-working
  .htm

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Reference

• Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen.
  Vocabulary Plus High School and Up A Source
  Based Approach. Boston, MA Pearson/Allyn
  Bacon, 2004.
• www.ablongman.com/nilsen