On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 7:51 AM, Steve Cavrak <Steve.Cavrak@uvm.edu> wrote:
On Jun 30, 2008, at 5:22 PM, Gordon Joly wrote:
At 15:37 -0400 28/6/08, Kevin Guidry wrote:
On Sat, Jun 28, 2008 at 3:23 PM, Gordon Carlson <gordycarlson@gmail.com> wrote:
broadband
Not a metaphor. Typically misused these days but still a technical term with a specific, defined meaning.
Isn't that how metaphors are formed?
Perhaps. I'm not an expert in language or how languages evolve so I'm not in a good position to answer your question. However, it seems to me that most metaphors are used with the explicit understanding that they are indeed metaphors and that understanding seems to supply some of their power and usefulness. Words or phrases that are misused to the point where the "misuse" redefines the word or phrase seem very different from metaphors. And to the person who asked for a definition of broadband: I got rid of my Cisco books a few years ago but I seem to recall that broadband was initially a technical term referring to media capable of transmitting multiple signals at the same time typically using some form of multiplexing. I understand how the term has come to mean "high speed Internet" but the shift from a technically-specific word to a very poorly-defined one greatly saddens my inner computer geek. Kevin