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Concept Expansion §

Take a word, any word, and just start using it in different ways. Each new instance expands our sense of the word.

Here’s 2009 - Analogy as Core - Hofstadter (talk)’s example of shadow: a shadow from the sun…then a snow shadow…then a rain shadow…a familial shadow…in the shadow of a big event…the gulf stream. Suddenly instead of a tree casting a shadow on the ground, it’s England casting a shadow on the northern parts of Scandinavia.

This is a bigger concept than first meets the eye. It’s a sneaky rhetorical device that’s used all the time. Be careful not to overuse it yourself. A good example of being caught up in your own overuse is someone’s insistence on force-fitting the term “Barbell Method” to describe reading something once lightly, and a second time more deeply. It stretches the definition so much as to befuddle.

Rhetoric - Redefinition Strategy - If by old, you mean XYZ -Reagan Concept Expansion can be used as a nice rhetorical trick

Politics - Co-opt what Freedom means - concept expansion

“Repeated analogies expand concepts” - 2009 - Analogy as Core - Hofstadter (talk)#source/quote