Hey Siri, an ancient algorithm may help you grasp metaphors

Mapping 1,100 years of metaphoric English language, researchers at UC Berkeley and Lehigh University in Pennsylvania have detected patterns in how English speakers have added figurative word meanings to their vocabulary. Researchers called the original semantic domain the "source domain" and the domain that the metaphorical meaning was extended to, the "target domain." More than 1,400 online participants were recruited to rate semantic domains such as "water" or "mind" according to the degree to which they were related to the external world (light, plants), animate things (humans, animals), or intense emotions (excitement, fear). In comparing their computational predictions against the actual historical record provided by the Metaphor Map of English, researchers found that their models correctly forecast about 75 percent of recorded metaphorical language mappings over the past millennium.