Fry's English Delight - Series 1 - Metaphor

Stephen Fry explores the highways and byways of the English language. Britain's high coastline/population ratio helps to explain how maritime metaphor shaped the English language. But the sea, and the way it shapes the land, has a special metaphorical meaning. Stephen suggests that language is shaped, like a coastline, by a flow of metaphors, which erode, break down and eventually become part of everyday speech and writing.