ABSTRACT
Metaphors involve: understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. Very frequently metaphors involve 'understanding and experiencing' – and communicating – something abstract in terms of something more concrete. The metaphorical expression war on is also used as a rhetorical weapon. The power of metaphor is that the grounds are implicit, not stated openly. One US election campaign poster mixed metaphor and irony in a highly effective way. The evaluation in the metaphor anti-Americanism is a crime is a little more complex. The warning to an opponent not to cross 'a red line' is a metaphor with a military connotation, the implication being that military action will be taken against the opponent if the metaphorical red line is crossed. Both metaphor and simile bring together two generally unconnected, and often quite dissimilar, entities. In a metonym, instead, some entity is alluded to by mention of something else connected or associated with it.
