Metaphors of the Road:
Route 66

Kendall Johnson
University of Hong Kong



"Metaphor: A figure of speech (more specifically a trope) that associates two distinct things; the representation of often thing by another. The image (or activity or concept) used to represent or 'figure' something else is the vehicle of the figure of speech; the thing represented is called the tenor. For instance, in the sentence 'That child is a mouse,' the child is the tenor, whereas the mouse is the vehicle. The image of a mouse is being used to represent the child, perhaps to emphasize his or her timidity."

    Ross Murfin and Supryia M. Ray, The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms (2003), p. 262



"Derived from the Greek roots meta (over, across, or beyond) and phor (to carry), the literal meaning of metaphor is "to carry across." A metaphor carries across a name from the source to the target. Rhetoricians throughout history have recognized metaphors as linguistic hand-me-downs, meanings passed on from an old word to a new thing."

    James Geary, I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor (2012), p. 9



The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost, August 1915


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.





Megan Gambino, "Endangered Site: Historic Route 66, U.S.A.",
Smithsonian Magazine, March 2009.
                         




Nat King Cole Trio (1946)


Depeche Mode (1988)



Bobby Troup (May 1964)

The Rolling Stones (1964)

Andy Lau, Hui jia de lu (2015)
                          If you ever plan to motor west
Travel my way
Take the highway that's the best
Get your kicks on Route 66
It winds from Chicago to LA
More than two thousand miles all the way
Get your kicks on Route 66
Now you go through St. Louis
Joplin, Missouri
And Oklahoma City looks mighty pretty
You'll see Amarillo
Gallup, New Mexico
Flagstaff, Arizona
Don't forget Winona
Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino
Won't you get hip to this timely tip
When you make that California trip
Get your kicks on Route 66
Won't you get hip to this timely tip
When you make that California trip
Get your kicks on Route 66
Get your kicks on Route 66
Get your kicks on Route 66

Bobby Troup, 1946