Metaphor is typically thought of as a purely literary phenomenon. In this class, we will explore how metaphors are used in everyday speech to conceptualize abstract concepts. Love, for example, is an abstract concept. If you asked two people to describe love, you would get different answers. Because it is difficult to describe love, speakers use metaphor to help conceptualize it. Some common love metaphors that occur in speech are the following: love is war (“we have to FIGHT for our relationship”), love is a game (“he PLAYED with my emotions”), and love is a journey (“we may have to GO OUR SEPARATE WAYS”). In this class, we will learn about common conceptual metaphors; learn how to spot examples in music, literature, advertisement, and more; and discuss what these metaphors reveal about the way we think about ideas, perceptions, emotions, and other abstract categories.