ANALOGY

ANALOGY. A comparison or correspondence between two things because of a third element that they are considered to share. An analogy is usually framed in order to describe or explain the nature of something: for example, time in ‘Let me give you an analogy. Time is like a river. Just as the river flows from higher to lower ground, so time flows from the past into the future.’ Once the time/river analogy has been drawn, people can talk about the flow of time and the currents of history. When such usages are established, their users may forget the analogy and come to think of them as statements of fact: what else can time do but flow? Because analogies depend on the concept as if, they often take the form of METAPHORS and SIMILES.

Grammar

In traditional language teaching, such PARADIGMS as the conjugations of Latin and French display inflections in a fixed order, using a REGULAR form of the verb for each class of inflections. In French, j'aime (I love) is to tu aimes (thou lovest) as j'adore (I adore) is to tu adores (thou adorest). Students learn to apply the basic example to all words of the same type and in this way can form nous adorons (we adore) from nous aimons (we love). In learning a language, children and students constantly make such analogies, both on their own and under guidance. Sometimes, however, they engage in false analogy. Here, the child or student uses such known relationships as cat: cats and dog: dogs to produce sheep: *sheeps. The analogy has been correctly applied but is false because languages are not completely logical or analogical.

Word-formation

In LEXICOLOGY, many words are described as created by analogy with other words: that is, new forms are modelled on older forms, as when cavalcade (a procession of horses and riders) prompted the formation of camelcade (a procession of camels) and motorcade (a procession of cars). In addition to the semantics of processions, important factors here appear to be a pattern of three syllables in which sole or primary stress falls on the first. The phonologically suitable beavercade is semantically unlikely, however, while the semantically suitable elephantcade is phonologically unlikely. Through such analogizing, the suffix -cade (meaning ‘procession of’) is added to the language, its use subject to certain constraints. This kind of analogy is fundamental to the formation of compound and derived words.

Rhetoric

Analogies are commonly employed for rhetorical, stylistic, or dramatic effect, often in the service of a social or political position:
Planet Earth is 4,600 million years old. If we condense this inconceivable time-span into an understandable concept, we can liken Earth to a person of 46 years of age. Nothing is known about the first 7 years of this person's life, and whilst only scattered information exists about the middle span, we know that only at the age 42 did the Earth begin to flower. Dinosaurs and great reptiles did not appear until one year ago, when the planet was 45. Mammals arrived only 8 months ago; in the middle of last week man-like apes evolved into ape-like men, and at the weekend the last ice age enveloped the Earth. Modern man has been around for four hours. During the last hour, Man discovered agriculture. The industrial revolution began a minute ago. During those sixty seconds of biological time, Modern Man has made a rubbish tip of Paradise (from a Greenpeace recruiting and fund-raising pamphlet, 1989).

See ALLUSION, FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE, USAGE, WORD-FORMATION.