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We have offered evidence that metaphors and metonymies are not random but instead form coherent systems in terms of which we conceptualize our experience. But it is easy to find apparent incoherences in everyday metaphorical expressions. We have not made a complete study of these, but those that we have looked at in detail have turned out not to be incoherent at all, though they appeared that way at first;

Charles Fillmore has observed (in conversation) that English appears to have two contradictory organizations of time. In the first, the future is in front and the past is behind:

This appears to be a contradiction in the metaphorical organization of time. Moreover, the apparently contradictory metaphors can mix with no ill effect, as in

Here it appears that ahead organizes the future in front, while following organizes it behind. To see that there is, in fact, a coherence here, we first

have to consider some facts about front-back organization. Some things, like people and cars, have inherent fronts and backs, but others, like trees, do not. A rock may receive a front-back organization under certain circumstances. Suppose you are looking at a medium-sized rock and there is a ball between you and the rock----say, a foot away from the rock. Then it is appropriate for you to say "The ball is in front of the rock." The rock has received a front-back orientation, as if it had a front that faced you. This is not universal. There are languages---Hausa, for instance--- where the rock would receive the reverse orientation and you would say that the ball was behind the rock if it was between you and the rock.

Moving objects generally receive a front-back orientation so that the front is in the direction of motion (or in the canonical direction of motion, so that a car backing up retains its front). A spherical satellite, for example, that has no front while standing still, gets a front while in orbit by virtue of the direction in which it is moving.

Now, time in English is structured in terms of the time is a moving object metaphor, with the future moving toward us:

The proverb "Time flies" is an instance of the time is a moving object metaphor. Since we are facing toward the future, we get:

I look forward to the arrival of Christmas. Before us is a great opportunity, and we don't want it to pass us by.

By virtue of the time is a moving object metaphor, time receives a front-back orientation facing in the direction of motion, just as any moving object would. Thus the future is

Now, while expressions like ahead of us, I look forward, and before us orient times with respect to people, expressions like precede and follow orient times with respect to times. Thus we get:

Since future times are facing toward us, the times following them are further in the future, and all future times follow the present. That is why the weeks to follow are the same as the weeks ahead of us.

The point of this example is not merely to show that there is no contradiction but also to show all the subtle details that are involved: the time is a moving object metaphor, the front-back orientation given to time by virtue of its being a moving object, and the consistent application of words like follow, precede, and face when applied to time on the basis of the metaphor. All of this consistent detailed metaphorical structure is part of our everyday literal language about time, so familiar that we would normally not notice it.

We have shown that the time is a moving object metaphor has an internal consistency. But there is another way in which we conceptualize the passing of time:

What we have here are two subcases of time passes us: in one case, we are moving and time is standing still; in the other, time is moving and we are standing still. What is in common is relative motion with respect to us, with the future in front and the past behind. That is, they are two subcases of the same metaphor, as shown in the accompanying diagram.

Time is a moving object Time is stationary and we and moves toward us move through it in the

This is another way of saying that they have a major common entailment. Both metaphors entail that, from our point of view, time goes past us from front to back.

Although the two metaphors are not consistent (that is, they form no single image), they nonetheless "fit together," by virtue of being subcategories of a major category and therefore sharing a major common entailment. There is a difference between metaphors that are coherent (that is, "fit together") with each other and those that are consistent. We have found that the connections between metaphors are more likely to involve coherence than consistency.

LOVE IS A JOURNEY

Here the basic metaphor is that of a journey, and there are various types of journeys that one can make: a car trip, a train trip, or a sea voyage.

Car trip train trip Sea voyage

Once again, there is no single consistent image that the journey metaphors all fit. What makes them coherent is that they are all journey metaphors, though they specify different means of travel. The same sort of thing occurs with the time is a moving object metaphor, where there are various ways in which something can move. Thus, time flies, time creeps along, time speeds by. In general, metaphorical concepts are defined not in terms of concrete images (flying, creeping, going down the road, etc.), but in terms of more general categories, like passing.