# Dead versus live metaphors in engineering writing > Source-anchored research for Dead versus live metaphors in engineering writing. Run status: COMPLETED. Parent: [Mixed metaphors and catachresis as signs of reflexive figurative language](https://llms-explorer.com/tree/ai-isms-mixed-metaphors/) · 4 facets · 7 facts · page: https://llms-explorer.com/tree/dead-versus-live-metaphors-in-engineering-writing/ ## Structure and components - Lakoff holds that conventional ('dead') metaphors are used constantly and automatically, without effort or awareness, yet still structure thought; his 1986 paper title 'The Death of Dead Metaphor' rejects the inert view. (medium confidence) — [source](https://george-lakoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/metamoprhical-issues-the-death-of-dead-metaphor-lakoff-c1986.pdf) ## How it works - Career-of-metaphor theory: novel metaphors are processed by comparison, and with repeated use the base term gains a domain-general category sense, so processing shifts to categorization and gets faster. This gives a mechanism for deadness as a gradient. (medium confidence) — [source](https://groups.psych.northwestern.edu/gentner/papers/BowdleGentner05.pdf) - Because deadness is relative to reader and context, extending a dead engineering metaphor literally (for example, a bug that 'crawls') can revive its imagery; this is the point where dead metaphors start to collide. (low confidence) — [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_metaphor) ## Comparisons and alternatives - Scholars disagree on whether dead metaphors are dead: Max Black treats them as separate vocabulary items rather than metaphors, while R.W. Gibbs argues they retain metaphorical qualities, and Turbayne and Walton argue they keep influencing thought. (medium confidence) — [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_metaphor) ## Facts and statements - Orwell distinguishes a dead metaphor, one that has reverted to being an ordinary word, from a dying metaphor, one that has lost evocative power and is used without knowledge of its meaning; he objects to the dying kind, not the dead kind. (medium confidence) — [source](https://theseacs.org/papers/teaching-technical-terminology-can-resurrecting-dead-metaphors-help/) - Software bug and thinking-machine constructs such as if/then, call/return and while are cited as dead metaphors in engineering language; readers no longer picture a cockroach. (low confidence) — [source](https://vsevolod-vlaskine.medium.com/meaningful-software-metaphor-and-software-engineering-f5922d7ce6fa) - A position paper argues that resurrecting the literal origin of dead technical terms (upper case, leading, gutter, out of sorts from typesetting) restores evocative power and aids memory; it reports no empirical results. (low confidence) — [source](https://theseacs.org/papers/teaching-technical-terminology-can-resurrecting-dead-metaphors-help/)