As a staple of business speak, metaphors help us to communicate coherently in meetings, presentations and even in that oh-so-important tête-à-tête with a key client. But whilst we rattle through agendas and actions, we often overlook comic gems such as mixed metaphors and other misuses of the English language. Much used yet often missed, they often conjure up vivid images that are truly Dali-esque in their surreality.
We thought these worthy of celebration and our initial intention was to produce a book, including Katapult crafted visuals, to bring the best to life. However, we thought we could have much more fun online and this blog is just the start. We’ve kicked things off with a few of our own but what we really want to do is to build a collection of classics that you’ve heard, witnessed, used or even made up…..we might even have a go at visualising the best ones submitted.
As well as having a bit of fun, we’ll also have a resource that we can all tap to spice up presentations, meetings and office life in general.
Metaphor Madness BETA 
A good test of any metaphor is to imagine what it would look like as a picture. If it is a mixed metaphor, or confused in any way, the picture one conjures up will be bizarre and, most likely, humorous which, if that is not your intention, will have the effect of distracting from the central narrative, undermining the strength of the argument and, ultimately, lowering one’s opinion of that particular piece of writing.
Hi. I used the term “the movers and the shakers” to my mum and dad and they hadent a clue what it meant.
ha ha. how did you describe it? You could alway have ago at drawing it as a picture.
I asked my sister in law the other day if she knew any metaphors and she came out with…
‘you can kill one bird with two stones’.
poor bird.