Failure mode
The failure is not metaphor itself. It is figurative wording whose main effect is ornament: it does not usefully compress, clarify, or structure the idea, but it makes the reader translate an image or introduces connotations that the note does not establish.
Test
Scan the body for conspicuous metaphors, idioms, and other figurative phrases used to state a claim, relation, action, or transition. For each candidate:
- State the intended literal meaning with its qualifications. The existence of this paraphrase is not by itself a failure.
- Ask what the figurative form contributes. Keep it when it functions as precise technical shorthand, concisely names a recognized pattern, sharpens a real contrast, clarifies a mechanism, or supplies a mapping that the later explanation uses.
- Check the source image's added connotations, such as agency, deservingness, direction, continuous control, causal mechanism, scale, or certainty. Ask whether the note means and supports them.
- Flag the phrase only when the literal version is at least as clear and the figurative version both contributes no useful precision, compression, contrast, or explanation and adds interpretation work or unsupported connotations.
For each finding, quote the phrase, give a literal replacement, and state what ambiguity, connotation, or reading effort the replacement removes. Do not infer the writer's motive. Do not flag a metaphor merely because it is vivid or because a literal paraphrase exists. An arguable preference between two equally clear formulations is not a finding.
Return WARN for one or more local instances. Return FAIL only when the pattern is pervasive enough to obstruct a direct reading of the note. Return PASS when no phrase meets the test. When the target text cannot be inspected, return no decision and report that the pair cannot be judged.
Do not duplicate a finding that is wholly owned by a more specific gate. A
model cognition claim belongs to prose/anthropomorphic-framing; an unmapped
source-domain residue belongs to prose/source-residue; and a removable filler
sentence belongs to sentence/stock-phrases. Apply this gate when a needed idea
remains but its wording should become literal.
Example (fail)
A dial worth turning.
This point earns its keep.
The intended claims are only that a parameter should be varied and a point
remains relevant. Dial adds continuous manual control, while earns its keep
adds deservingness. The text uses neither connotation.
Example (pass)
A parameter worth varying.
This point still matters.
These phrases state the intended ideas directly.
Example (pass — conventional metaphor)
The retained prior version is a safety net if validation fails.
Safety net is familiar and concise, and its protective connotation matches
the function described. It does not add an unsupported mechanism or judgment.
Example (pass — explanatory mapping)
Treat the filter as a sieve: each stage removes candidates that violate one named constraint, and the next stage examines what remains.
The passage states the mapping and uses it to explain the staged filtering mechanism.
Relevant Notes:
- Figurative wording can suggest relations that the target claim does not justify — rests-on: explains the conditional inference risk of unused figurative implications while preserving conventional and explanatory figures