18.167 metaphors of hard and soft

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 18, No. 167.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
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   [1] From: Norman Hinton <hinton_at_springnet1.com> (14)
         Subject: Re: 18.162 metaphors of hard and soft

   [2] From: "Clai Rice" <cxr1086_at_louisiana.edu> (7)
         Subject: RE: 18.162 metaphors of hard and soft

--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 07:21:08 +0100
         From: Norman Hinton <hinton_at_springnet1.com>
         Subject: Re: 18.162 metaphors of hard and soft

Willard, as best I can recall, when I was an undergrad in the 50s we called
Chemistry, Physics, and Biology "hard" sciences, but we never called
anything a "soft" science. The opposition was between the hard sciences
and the social sciences (when my future wife and I first met, I was still
technically a Chem major [on my way to changing it officially to English]
and she a Sociology major, so the terms came up from time to time in
friendly argument).

In recent years I used to tease my friends in Biology by calling it the
"gooey science".

And structural linguistics, when I was first learning it in the late 50s,
was sometimes claimed to be a 'bridge' science, but between "hard' and
"social", not "soft".

I have no idea when "soft' became a term in the discourse, nor did I ever
hear anyone suggest that gender had anything to do with the matter.

--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 07:21:37 +0100
         From: "Clai Rice" <cxr1086_at_louisiana.edu>
         Subject: RE: 18.162 metaphors of hard and soft

Burton Melnick has a nice cognitive metaphor analysis of the metaphors on
line at http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/1999_melnick01.shtml

--Clai Rice

WM writes:
.... More for the pile welcome, esp.
> items that deal specifically with the hard vs soft metaphors.
>
Received on Thu Aug 26 2004 - 02:52:24 EDT