Word Prisms

For those of you who’ve forgotten from high school, a metaphor is comparison of two unlike things.   A simile is a metaphor using like or as to connection the two objects.   Poetry makes great use of metaphors and I’ve always found my favourite songs utilize an extended metaphor to create a feeling or image “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan or “Brown Sugar” by the Rolling Stones or “Drops like Jupiter” by Train or “I Can See Clearly Now” Johnny Nash or “Pocket of a Clown” by Dwight Yoakam.   You get my drift.   The teaching profession uses metaphors to justify teaching practice.   The last superintendent of schools introduced herself to parents and teachers with a metaphor that went something like this.   Eye surgeons once used a scalpel to remove a cataract from a patient’s eye but, today, they use lasers.   What was once a somewhat dangerous and expensive procedure has now become cheap and routine.   By extension, through the introduction ...

          A few days before Christmas, my wife and I were suddenly woken by a phone call at 6:30 in the morning.  With much trepidation, Nicola picked up the receiver located on her side of the bed.  A phone call at this time in the morning is either a wrong number or bad news.  Unfortunately, this was the latter.  Our eldest was phoning from Heathrow Airport to say that she hadn’t been able to board the plane for Minneapolis because her first and last names had been switched on the ticket.  If the clerical error had been identified prior to boarding, a correction to her name could have been made.  Now, she would have to pay 750£ or $1250 Canadian to book a new flight.             I didn't understand.  The airline would have been in possession of our daughter’s passport number and the credit card number she'd used to purchase the ticket.  Surely, th...