When my grandfather first saw a car, he didn’t think “automobile.” He thought, “That’s a carriage that moves without a horse — it’s a horseless carriage.”

BABY, YOU CAN DRIVE MY CAR Grandpa didn't know from cars; he called this a horseless carriage. Analogies help people understand new ideas by linking them to familiar ones. (Photo from The Library of Congress on Flickr)

He added to his knowledge by comparing the new concept to something he already understood. In other words, he learned through metaphor.

“Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature,” write George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in Metaphors We Live By.

In other words: Metaphor is how we think.

We use metaphor all the time. As Lakoff and Johnson point out, we compare:

• Arguments to war (Attack your position. Claims are indefensible. Criticisms were right on target. Shoot down arguments.)
• Time to money (spending time, wasting time, saving time, investing time, costing time)
• Computers to offices (desktops, files, folders, documents, notepads)

In our brains, love is a journey, problems are puzzles and the Internet is a city.

Metaphors work because they compare the concept to something more familiar: cars to horse-drawn carriages, for instance. That helps people understand new, complex or conceptual information — computers, the Internet, love — by means of something they already understand.

And that makes metaphors shortcuts to understanding.

Compare complex concepts

If metaphor is how we think, then writers can help people think through metaphor.

That’s the approach Richard Preston used in The Demon in the Freezer to help people wrap their brains around the science of smallpox:

“Variola particles are built to survive in the air. They are rounded-off rectangles that have a knobby, patterned surface — a gnarly hand-grenade look. Some experts call the particles bricks. The whole brick is made of a hundred different proteins, assembled and interlocked in a three-dimensional puzzle. Pox bricks are the largest viruses. If a smallpox brick were the size of a real brick, then a cold-virus particle would be a blueberry on the brick. But smallpox particles are still extremely small; about three million smallpox bricks laid down in rows would pave the period at the end of this sentence.”

Why does this work?

“Human thought processes are largely metaphorical,” write Lakoff and Johnson. “The human conceptual system is metaphorically structured and defined. … Metaphor is as much a part of our functioning as our sense of touch, and as precious.”

Bottom line: If you’re communicating technical,
scientific or complicated information, use metaphor.

___

Sources: George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1980

Richard Preston, The Demon in the Freezer, Random House, October 2002

Make Your Copy More Creative

Want to communicate better with creative copy?

• Get it off your desk: Invite Ann’s team to handle a creative writing or editing project.
• Polish staff skills: Bring Ann to your organization for a “Make Your Copy More Creative” workshop.
• Boost your own abilities: Work with Ann to Make Your Copy More Creative in one-on-one writing coaching. Or find out about Ann’s next “Art of the Storyteller” webinar.
• Learn more: Read Ann’s learning tools on storytelling, metaphor and human interest.
• Join the club: Find dozens of tipsheets on creative copywriting at RevUpReadership.com.

by Ann Wylie, president, Wylie Communications Inc.

Numbers numb.

But sometimes only numbers can demonstrate the depth or breadth of an issue. Make your statistics more meaningful by comparing them to something tangible and familiar to your audience. That’s what American Public Media’s Scott Jagow asked to help his audience members get their arms around the 2008 economic relief package tab in this broadcast (fast-forward to 7:43):

“It is hard to comprehend $700 billion, so I thought maybe we’d consider what else we could buy with that money. $700 billion would pay for about 600 gallons of gas for everyone in America, or we could build high-speed train routes from coast to coast. We could buy about 300 Hubble space telescopes or take a trip to the International Space Station 35,000 times. We could send 30 million kids to college for free, at public universities, or get a laptop for every child in the world.”

A laptop for every child in the world. OK, now I see.

1. Do the legwork.

I wish I could tell you it’s easy to develop a passage like this. But finding numerical comparisons takes a lot of research.

I found that out when I was writing an annual report about charitable giving in Kansas City. I wanted to compare the $770 million total amount Kansas Citians gave to charitable organizations in one year to make that number more meaningful to the audience. To track down the comparisons, I:

• Used the Business Journal’s Book of Lists to report that $770 million was “more than the annual revenues of Blue Cross/Blue Shield” and “more than the combined annual budgets of the metropolitan area’s three largest school districts.”

• Called the city’s economic development authority to find the city’s average wage. After a few minutes with my calculator, I was able to report that: “To achieve that amount, some 24,000 people would have to work full time for a year at Kansas City’s average hourly wage of $15.59.”

• Did the math. From the Book of Lists, I learned the size of the student body of one of the city’s largest school districts. I divided $770 million by the number of students. The result: in the neighborhood of $35,000 per student. Then I asked: “What would that buy that students might want?” (That helps you sync your metaphors with your topic.) My answer: some kind of car. That year, Jeeps were popular, so I …

• Called the local Jeep dealership to find out what kind of Jeep I could get for $35,000. As a result, I was able to report that $770 million was “more than enough to buy every student in the Kansas City, Kan., School District a brand-new, 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee.”

Doing the legwork for numerical comparisons is hard work. But it’s worth it to help readers comprehend your statistics.

2. Browse these resources for numerical comparison.

Looking for statistics to give your numbers context? These resources will help you find comparisons to make your numbers more interesting and understandable to your audience members:

• FedStats. This website bills itself as “the gateway to statistics for over 100 federal agencies.” You’ll find statistics on everything from how much wine Americans drink (less than one-third of a gallon a year, which means I’m definitely upping the averages!) to the average income of Salt Lake Citians. Don’t miss MapStats for comprehensive data on the 50 states.

• ePodunk.com. Statistics, demographics and other information about 25,000 U.S. communities. If I were writing about a 20-minute surgical procedure for a health system client in my hometown, for instance, I’d do a little research here. Then I’d be able to report that the surgeon could perform the procedure in less time than it takes the average Kansas Citian to drive to work.

• Finding Data on the Internet. Journalist Robert Niles provides a list of helpful links to “reputable data on everything from public safety to campaign contributions.”

3. Make sure your comparison aids understanding.

The magic of metaphor in translating numbers is that you compare the unfamiliar to the familiar to aid understanding.

So when you compare, say, the cost of a new program to a stack of dollar bills that go to the moon and back, you have to ask yourself how familiar that is. How many of your audience members have been to the moon and back?

Don’t let statistics stultify your copy. Every time your finger reaches for the top row of the keyboard, ask yourself: “What can I compare this to?”

The result: clear, compelling copy — regardless of how complex your numbers may be.

Take the ‘numb’ out of numbers

Want to master the art of making statistics more interesting and understandable?

• Read Ann’s “Clarify Complex Copy” toolkit.
• Download her “Take the Numb Out of Numbers” e-book (free to RevUpReadership.com Gold members)
• Get dozens of tipsheets on clarifying complex concepts with comparison on RevUpReadership.com.
• Find Ann’s out about Ann’s next “Take the ‘Numb’ Out of Numbers” teleseminar.
• Bring Ann to your organization for a workshop on Making Your Copy More Creative or Taking the ‘Numb’ Out of Numbers.
• Work with Ann to polish your writing with one-on-one writing coaching.

About Ann Wylie

Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc., a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Wylie is the author of RevUpReadership.com, a toolbox for writers, and Wylie’s Writing Tips, a free e-zine. She has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills, for her work.

Copyright © 2009 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.