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We conceptualise argument as war.

In George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s work, Metaphors We Live By (1980), we see
how everyday language is filled with metaphors we may not always notice.
An example of one of the commonly used conceptual metaphors is "argument is war".

Re the recent Ryan/Biden debate, comments like this abounded.
"It was a bit of a war... but I though Biden won."
"They really battled it out but Ryan was the victor."

We view argument as war or as a battle to be won. It is not uncommon to hear someone say
"He won that argument" or
"I attacked every weak point in his argument".

The very way argument is thought of is shaped by this metaphor of arguments being war
and battles that must be won. Argument can be seen in many other ways other than a battle,
but we use this concept to shape the way we think of argument and the way we go about
arguing.



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