It's been a good week for ...

metaphors

It's enough to blow your mind. Everyday metaphors have been traced back a whopping 13 centuries by Glasgow University researchers.

A team from the School of Critical Studies have spent three years creating the first ever Metaphor Map of the English language. Metaphors are mapped into 415 categories, such as anger, excitement, literature and light. According to the project's Dr Wendy Anderson: "We use metaphors of light to talk about intelligence. For example, people are described as 'bright' or 'brilliant ... On the flip side of this metaphor, darkness is represented as a lack of intelligence or knowledge - a person can be 'dim' or even 'unilluminated'."

The team found more than 10,000 metaphorical connections between different categories of words, and they have developed an idea of how the spelling and meaning of metaphors have changed over the centuries.

It's certainly food for thought ... and maybe a new way to eat your words.

It's been a bad week for ... dress code at work

The mercury has been going through the roof in parts of the UK, prompting the TUC to appeal to bosses to allow staff to dress down to cope with soaring temperatures. "It is no fun working in a baking office or factory and employers should do all they can to take the temperature down," said TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady. "Clearly vest tops and shorts are not suitable attire for all frontline staff, but those not dealing with the public should be able to discard their tights, ties and suits."

I suspect a mass strip on the factory/office floor is not what was in mind. But dress code is a tricky area. In bygone days, stricter rules required men to wear suits and ties no matter what. So on a bank holiday when rules were slackened, some of the more senior male employees got a bit carried away, inflicting their colleagues with their most garish golfing gear. It was a feast for the eyes, but after a while a dozen Lyle & Scott checked V-necks in an array of pastels accompanied by slacks (yes, slacks) in impossible shades was enough to bring on a migraine.

So relaxing the sartorial rules can be a risky business - particularly in Scotland, when that big yellow thing in the sky is seen seldom so requires the baring of flesh at the merest of opportunities.

Taps aff, anyone?