10 July 2001 - put out your eyes

Jay Scott : Daily Whale : archive : 2001 : 10 July 2001

A Note to Artificial Language Designers

Put out your eyes as if they were a fire.
Put out your eyes as if they were the trash.
Put out your eyes: They’re just a metaphor.
Now let’s get down and mosh.

clue:

Serious constructed languages (you know—like Esperanto, only harder) have problems with metaphor. It seems to be beyond the state of the art to design a full-power system of metaphor as used in natural languages. Some designers have gone so far as to argue for literal usage only.

give me a clue so sweet and true