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A lexicographic and corpus linguistic investigation of put a damper/dampener on

Cserép, A.: A lexicographic and corpus linguistic investigation of put a damper/dampener on.
Argumentum (Debr.). 15, 155-167, 2019.
title:
A lexicographic and corpus linguistic investigation of put a damper/dampener on
authors:
  • Cserép Attila
published:
2019
type:
article
genre:
foreign language journal publication in domestic (Hungarian) journal
journal:
Argumentum (ISSN: 1787-3606)
language:
English
HAC:
Humanities, Linguistics
subjects:
idioms, etymology, conceptual metaphor, diachronic corpus, dictionaries
abstract:
Some sources trace the idiom put a damper/dampener on back to either the HEAT/FIRE or the SOUND domain. Damper is said to have originally referred to either a metal plate that regulates the air supply in a chimney or a device that stops the vibration of a piano string. Diachronic corpus evidence suggests that the sense ♭something that moistens' of damper was metaphorically extended in the context of be, cast and throw and developed the meaning ♭somebody/something that depresses the spirits' based on the conceptual metaphor EMOTIONAL INTENSITY IS HEAT/FIRE. The ♭draught regulator' and ♭(piano) sound reducer' senses are more recent developments, and the variant dampener is much more recent.
DEENK University of Debrecen
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