The BMJ’s columnist, Margaret McCartney, wrote that we need, “cast iron divisions between healthcare and industry” because their priorities are different. (Being The BMJ, there was no hyphen; but dictionaries […]
Metaphor watch
Neville Goodman’s Metaphor Watch: No, we aren’t nearly there
It must be one of the most annoying and predictable child behaviours. Perhaps even more predictable than asking if orange juice has got bits in. Any journey of any length […]
Neville Goodman’s Metaphor Watch: Stepping stones and stumbling blocks
A stepping stone is an action that helps one to make progress towards a goal. This definition, from the COD, includes the metaphorical goal. Although the etymology of goal (according […]
Neville Goodman’s Metaphor Watch: Once it was just oil, now it’s investigators
A curious thing has happened to pipeline. The word—although originally, as happens with many words, as two separate words—is first recorded by the OED in the early days of the […]
Neville Goodman’s Metaphor Watch: Flashes, flies, and spanners
Knowing the vicissitudes of medical research, I expected a fair number of flashes in the pan and flies in the ointment, but neither is a common metaphor in PubMed. I […]
Neville Goodman’s Metaphor Watch: Time to come off the gold standard
This blog started with epidemic proportions. There are nearly 1800 PubMed articles written in English that have epidemic proportions in the title or abstract. Of the other metaphors I’ve dealt […]
Neville Goodman’s Metaphor Watch: leave business metaphors to business
Some metaphors have gone beyond cliché to parody, and should never be written in a medical article. They include at the end of the day, level playing field, and moving […]
Neville Goodman’s Metaphor Watch: Guns and needles
Sometimes research goes badly, and red herrings lead to a blind alley (qv), but sometimes there’s a smoking gun: conclusive evidence just a little bit short of being caught in […]
Neville Goodman’s Metaphor Watch: Rocks, horns, devils, and hard places
A dilemma is not just an irritating problem, like trying to decide whether to go to Costa or Starbucks, which anyway gives the option of not having coffee at all. […]
Neville Goodman’s Metaphor Watch: Three weeks on the front line
This blog has so far picked a metaphor, or a theme for metaphors, and searched for them. There are many metaphors that are less overt. For the last blog of […]