No nudity—only the “naked truth”

In the mid-1600s, English clergyman Thomas Sprat was fed up with flowery discourse. Inspired by scientific language, he set out to replace rhetoric with the “naked truth,” language stripped of metaphor, imagery—any and all poetic devices.

There was only one problem.

“Naked truth” is a metaphor.

The conduit metaphor

Sprat’s faux pas underscores how fundamental metaphor is to how we understand and interact with the world. (He also argued for brevity in a 59-word sentence.)

We’ve talked about how much of metaphor is conceptual. Even our concept of communication is metaphorical. Just look at linguist Michael J. Reddy’s “conduit metaphor,” first introduced in 1979:

This conceit, that ideas can be neatly captured and transmitted in words, pervades our culture. Yet it ignores the recipient’s ability to reconstruct the message’s meaning.

Reddy warned that an overreliance on the conduit metaphor could lead to a decline in understanding even as the volume of communication increases.

Circularity and context

Linguistic expressions are more than containers; they are the maps we use to navigate the world. To interpret language requires historical and cultural context and places the interpreter squarely within the culture.

That’s why Ralph Waldo Emerson described language as “fossil poetry,” words echoing the images and tropes of their cultures of origin.

Nor are words simply modular tools with inherent usefulness. Interpreting language involves a circular exchange between parts and the whole: words give meaning to a sentence, and the meaning of the sentence determines the words’ meaning. The audience interprets the lot through intuitive leaps.

Take the sentence “I tried on Dorothy’s ruby slippers.” The meaning of “slippers” in this sentence differs from the tired bedroom footwear we might think of otherwise. We know you’re talking about Dorothy Gale from Kansas.

On the other hand, if you replace “slippers” with “bathrobe,” the information becomes much less exciting. And who is Dorothy in this context—your aunt?

Focus on understanding

To return to Sprat’s naked truth (in his parlance, the “naked Innocence of vertue”): think of how much we would not be able to communicate if as a society we limited ourselves to the clinical precision of scientific language.

Precision and literalness neither guarantee understanding nor preclude misinterpretation. Sometimes we need to let up on precision to aid understanding. Making a text more enjoyable to read is but one way metaphor, imagery, and alliteration can help. Metaphors have their limits, but they’re inescapable, useful, and often beautiful.

It all comes back to knowing your audience: might they be satisfied with “a protein called titin,” or would they prefer its 189,819-letter scientific name?

Experimentation, data analysis, press releases, poetry—all require interpretation. Our work as communicators is to do some of that digestive work for our audience so that they can integrate the parts into a meaningful whole.