One of my witty writer friends responded to my newsletter about style by suggesting I write next time about mixed metaphors. And he gave an example from my own piece.
Oof!
But when I thought about it, I realized his example could demonstrate when mixing a metaphor is OK. It’s a deeper topic than any strict grammar rule.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘metaphor’ as, “A figure of speech in which a name or descriptive word or phrase is transferred to an object or action different from, but analogous to, that to which it is literally applicable.”
I like this broad definition, because it includes similes and analogies as well as sentences that simply call one thing another: “The snow was a blanket.”
I use these tools a lot (see, I just did—words are not really ‘tools’), because metaphors are like pre-furnished rooms (there’s another) that you add to a sentence without having to build their contents from the ground up.
To break down the blanket of snow as an example—it tells you the snow smoothed the landscape, it was monochromatic, it was soft, it enveloped and insulated the ground—and it suggests warmth and nostalgia, like a cozy blanket. A few words extend the meaning with associations that we already share.
Writing metaphorically makes you a mental DJ, playing samples prerecorded in the reader’s mind to build your paragraphs. The economy and power of this kind of writing comes from the way we activate and combine those associations. (The words are keys on a keyboard—we’re not sampling from a turntable.)
Rules for using metaphors are squishy, like those of taste in clothing. A mixed metaphor is like wearing stripes with plaid.
And there are other transgressions besides combining a clashing outfit. For example, take the metaphor above, about adding the pre-furnished room to the house. It strikes me as clumsy—to add a pre-furnished room is not a real thing—but if the only goal is a avoid a mixed metaphor, it does fit with the ‘tools’ earlier in that paragraph.
The paragraph my friend Eric pointed out from my last newsletter was this:
“Easy games ultimately are not worth playing. The reward of using the full palette of literary colors and textures demands some formality—just as tennis requires having a net and boundary lines.”
On further consideration, I defend that paragraph. A truly mixed metaphor, “his anger flared into an avalanche,” discordantly superimposes two tunes—in this case, forcing you to think of a flaming avalanche.
But the tennis game and the oil painting in my paragraph blend euphoniously. You need rules in painting to create meaning, just as you do in tennis and in writing. All three together suggest the orderly linkage of the mind and the world in thoughtful leisure.
Careful stacking of metaphors need not cause them to mix, it can create a third dimension of meaningful associations in a complex matrix for the mind to explore. The DJ can play a chord.
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