cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)

[Iren Hartmann]

Hi Rory,

just a very quick answer to your questions bout German:

Does this metaphor exist even in German?  I'm
looking in an unabridged Collins dictionary, and I see almost nothing in
there to support what we're looking for.  An idea can be glaenzend,
which means 'shiny' or 'lustrous', as can a success or one's prospects.
 But a person is intelligent, klug, schlau, aufgeweckt ("woken-up"),
gewitzt or gescheit.  As far as I know, none of these indicates luminousity. 


This is true, but there is a (maybe nowadays somewhat more old-fashioned(?)) use of hell(e) 'bright' in the sense of smart/intelligent/clever. You can call someone "ein helles Koepfchen" (lit. a bright head) meaning that person is smart, or you can say Der ist nicht so ganz helle ('He isn't quite so smart'), I guess it gets mostly used in negated sentences, though I've heard people say thigs like Der ist ziemlich helle ('He's quite smart'). I cannot, however, think of any metaphoric use of a word meaning 'dim/dark' and also something like dim-witted.

All the best,
Iren


 		 	   		  
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