what is a...?
Continuing on from the last post on “What is a…?” here is the rest of the list.
What is a metaphor?
As succinctly as I can put it, a metaphor is a type of comparison that is only true for one key attribute. In a way, they are long winded adjectives (which I’ll be describing later).
Quite often they are used to describe someone’s personality, so I’ll pick out some examples: “He’s as thick as two short planks.”, “She’s bright as a button.” In neither case are these metaphors being used to liken someone directly with a plank of wood or a button, but they are taking advantage of the adjectives (thick and bright) and their respective use to then apply them to someone.
Sometimes, the gross sin of mixed metaphors is committed. This is where you start using one metaphor and end up with another. Wikipedia lists a nice one: “He stepped up to the plate and grabbed the bull by the horns”. Whatever you do with language, try not to mix your metaphors unless you’re going for comedic effect.
What is acid rain?
I am a not so very proud possessor of a CSE grade 5 in Chesmisry- though I put that down to a rubbish teacher who was always off sick or leaving us to play games on the old BBC Bs.
Whenever I think about acids I think about litmus paper and dipping it in a liquid to see what colour it went. That’s important because an acid is something that is soluble in water, as is an alkaline. So when your litmus paper changed colour you had to compare it to the colours on a chart to identify the appropriate pH level. Oh yeah, pH! Who remembers what that stands for? I didn’t, but apparently it stands for potential (or power) of hydrogen. If you remember, water has a pH of 7. Anything below 7 is an acid, and anything above 7 is an alkaline.
Ok, so what does that all mean in the real world? Acid’s main property that is relevant to this topic is that it is more corrosive than water. This means that it destroys things fast than water. If the water was in a non-corrosive container that wouldn’t be too bad, but if it’s falling as rain it tends to end up poisoning plants. If it’s killing off plants then it is also potentially destroying the crops we rely on for food and fuel.
Where does acid rain come from? Anything that sends up acidic substances into the atmosphere to be diluted by the moisture in the air. That includes sulphur, nitrogen and carbon emissions. And we all know that we produce a lot of these in our cars, planes and power stations. These emissions are also produced naturally by lightening strikes and volcanoes.
What is a noun?
Yay, back to grammar! Back in my old school days a noun was described as a naming word. Well, yes but in a way even verbs are naming words because they name an action. In linguistics we refer to words like nouns, verbs and adjectives etc as parts of speech (POS). And POS describes that a particular function a word uses in a particular context. It is very common, in English at least, for a word to have different functions depending on its context. Here are some examples using the word Google:
- Google is a search engine. (Noun)
- I’ll Google that. (Verb)
- It’s a Googled website. (adjective)
This doesn’t really answer the question though, so let me add that nouns also encode information about number (in English) and gender (French, Italian, German etc) and case (German and Finish). So nouns can be singular or plural (apple/apples). Masculine or Feminine (or Neuter) (mela/melo : apple/apple tree in Italian). Finally, Case tells you what relation the noun has to the verb and other nouns. In English we only see case with pronouns she – subject/nominative, her – object/accusative, hers – possessive/genitive, herself – reflexive.
Unfortunately, we have a problem with these little tests because adjectives in other languages can also show all these features. In fact, truth be told, defining what a noun is using words is a little difficult because the explanations one might give for English might not hold for other languages. When I have my computational linguistic hat on, the only pragmatic way of determining a noun is to assume everything is noun unless evidence tells you it’s not. Other than that rather brutal method, I think the best way of describing a noun is by describing the types of nouns you can get:
- Proper Nouns – these are formal names given to people, animals, organisations or countries etc.
- Common Nouns – nouns that are not proper nouns or other classes
- Countable Nouns – nouns you can count – usually things, but not always. e.g. computer – computers
- Uncountable Nouns – nouns you can’t count – furniture – *furnitures (* means that’s ungrammatical)
- Concrete Nouns – things you can touch
- Abstract Nouns – concepts
- Pronouns – he/him/his/himself/that/who/which
- Substantive Adjectives – adjectives used as nouns: the good, bad and the ugly.
What is a virus?
Wikipedia has a nice concise explanation: A virus (from the Latin virus meaning toxin or poison) is a microscopic infectious agent that can reproduce only inside a host cell.
A computer virus isn’t really a virus in the same sense, but the term virus is being used metaphorically because of its reproductive qualities.
What is an adjective?
An adjective modifies a noun! Often an adjective in English looks like the past participle of a verb (i.e. a word ending with -ed -googled ). In English adjectives come before nouns: the green car. In many romance languages it comes after: la macchina verde. The adjective can also be the object of copula verbs such as be, feel, seems: he is happy; she feels uneasy; it seems easy.
