Thermoaesthetic Expressions
Thousands of popular, idiomatic expressions have been selected for aesthetically in languages due to the amusing, contradictory way in which they reference psychologically opposite, more and less exciting phenomena.
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Contents
∘ Aesthetic Dualities
∘ Deriving Aesthetic Structures
∘ Mixture Lists
∘ Heat
∘ Fluidity
∘ Dynamism
∘ Disorder
∘ Brightness
∘ Upwardness
∘ Outwardness
∘ Multiplicity (Many and Few) in Language
∘ Roundness, Length and Spikiness in Language
∘ Longer Aesthetic Sequences and Degrees of Excitement
∘ Works Cited
Aesthetic Dualities
From the existence of the popular, memetic expressions listed in the sections below it’s evident that languages are aesthetic and made up of alternating references to various simple, more and less exciting dualistic opposites. Dualities considered here, with the more exciting quality written first, include: hot — cold, fluid — solid, dynamic — static, disorder — order, bright — dark, up — down, out — in, many — few, high-pitch — low-pitch, spiky — round and long — round.
The given exciting qualities are related in a category in the subconscious mind and the less exciting opposite qualities are related in an opposite mental category. Heat subconsciously reminds us of dynamism, disorder, brightness, upwardness, outwardness and other exciting things such as anger and sex. Meanwhile, coldness is reminiscent of stasis, order, darkness, downwardness, inwardness and other lower-excitement qualities.
As a result of these and other universal subconscious associations we recognize a set of dualities not observably present in the outside world. One can choose any member of the more exciting quality category, mix it perceptually with any quality from the opposite, less exciting category and derive the structure of numerous aesthetic phenomena including a large portion of the idiomatic (literally nonsensical) expressions we use in everyday language.
Perceptual mixtures of qualities across mental categories convey a degree of mystery, surprise and aesthetic value compared to perceptual combinations of qualities from within one or the other mental category. Something perceptually hot, fluid, dynamic, disorderly, bright and so on is exciting to animals compared to something cold, solid, static, orderly and dark, while mixtures of these qualities such as bright solidness and dark fluidity are moderately exciting, interesting, relatively likable and amusing.
Even though the diametric opposite of heat in nature is coldness, darkness is also its opposite in the mind. The reverse is true as well, by default, so that brightness is opposite to both darkness and coldness in the brian but only to darkness in nature. While this can be determined using idioms, or poetry, it’s also evident from experiments with brightness and temperature as variables (Bellia et al. 2019):
“The Hue Heat Hypothesis (HHH) is based on the idea that light and colours of the environment can affect thermal perception and influence thermal comfort. Specifically, it states that, when spectral power distribution of light reaching an observer’s eye is characterized by long wavelengths in the visible spectrum, the space is perceived as warmer; conversely, when small wavelengths are predominant, the space is perceived as cooler.”
“Thermal comfort” is one way to describe the psychology of the hue heat effect, but it can also be put in terms of preferences. A person in a hotter environment is more comfortable in or prefers to be in a darker (smaller wavelength), black- or blue-colored room, for instance, and a person who feels colder prefers to be in a room with “hotter-colored” (longer wavelength) white, red or yellow walls. In other words, the mixtures hot — dark and bright — cold are preferred over or more likable than the congruent psychophysical combinations hot — bright and cold — dark.
In accordance with the hue-heat effect hotter animals, those living near the equator, for example, should be expected to prefer and court with darker mates. Oppositely, animals living in colder places or near the poles should prefer brighter mates, leading to very general dark to bright gradients in animal body color from hotter to colder locations. This is observable in birds, bears, wild cats, zebras, aquatic mammals and others, meaning the hue-heat effect operates independently of species and taxonomic variation in brains, and that a psychophysical aesthetic mechanism is largely responsible rather than differential survival as usually employed to understand biological traits and trends.
Deriving Aesthetic Structures
Because heat corresponds to greater fluidity in matter, including especially that of extremely liquid crystalline objects like brains, one can replace heat in the hue-heat preference/effect with fluidity, replace coldness with solidness and derive the aesthetic structures fluid — dark and bright — solid, which also correspond to universal preferences and effects. One can go on substituting qualities correlated with changes in brain temperature and fluidity to derive quality pairs corresponding to other aesthetic preferences, such as the following, in which fluidity is replaced by physically correlated dynamism, disorder and upwardness and solidness is replaced with stasis, order and downwardness:
dynamic — dark/bright — static,
disorder — dark/bright — order,
up— dark/bright — down.
Substituting qualities correlated with brain temperature for their psychologically categorical relatives generates further commonly preferred aesthetic structures. By this process one ultimately arrives at a set of amusing mixtures like the following, all of which have numerous matching idiomatic expressions:
hot — cold*, hot — solid, hot — order, hot — dark, hot — static, hot — down, hot — in, fluid — cold, fluid — solid*, fluid — order, fluid — dark, fluid — static, fluid — down, fluid — in, disorder — cold, disorder — solid, disorder — order*, disorder — dark, disorder — static, disorder — down, disorder — in, bright — cold, bright — solid, bright — order, bright — dark*, bright — static, bright — down, bright — in, dynamic — cold, dynamic — solid, dynamic — order, dynamic — dark, dynamic — static*, dynamic — down, dynamic — in, up — cold, up — solid, up — order, up — dark, up — static, up — down*, up — in, out — cold, out — solid, out — order, out — dark, out — static, out — down, out — in*.
Diametrically opposite mixtures or those we can observe to be opposed to each other outside the brain are marked with an asterisk. These might tend to be slightly more common in aesthetic material than the listed non-diametrically opposed dualities, but it’s clear from the lists below that we’re amused by all of these mixtures, indicating liquid crystallinity in the brain is fundamental to our sense of beauty. The stories Dynamic Darkness and Bright Stasis in Animals and Painted by Nature demonstrate the usefulness of thinking of animal coloration as a result of preferences for mixtures of dynamism and upwardness with darkness and stasis and downwardness with brightness.
Mixture Lists
Aesthetic mixtures occur much more frequently in poetry than prose because poetry is relatively aesthetic and more reflective of the brain and mind than normal, practical language. Mixtures (or dualities or aesthetic structures) are written in bold throughout the following lists, and those that are underlined are linked to lists of poems written by authors on Medium demonstrating the aesthetic use of the given mixture. All other languages must have similar idioms, given their frequency in English.
It’s arguable whether the qualities upward, downward, outward and inward relate to physical changes in the brain but I’ve included them here because they occur as commonly in idiomatic language as more obviously physics-related phenomena, and because there’s a strong argument that they are physical, given the upward and outward nature of hot matter relative to cold matter. Brightness is included because it’s obvious that a brain experiencing light and brightness is more excited and hotter than a brain experiencing darkness. All of the lists are under construction.
Heat
Hot — cold (3: waxing hot and cold, hot and cold flashes, cold hands warm heart); hot — solid (18: when Hell freezes over, fire and brimstone, hot stuff, hot shit, burn your bridges, burn to the ground, hot off the grill, scorched earth, firewall, hot and heavy, like a cat on a hot tin roof, dumpster fire, hot rod, firing on all cylinders, boilerplate, guns blazing, third rock from the sun, the road to hell is paved with good intentions); hot — static (3: dead heat, three hots and a cot, hotbed); hot — order (1: hot box); hot — dark (2: the heat of the night, burning the midnight oil); hot — down (4: fire down below, under fire, drop it like it’s hot, simmer down); hot — in (18: hellhole, burning a hole in your pocket, hot pocket, piping hot, too hot to handle, to hell in a hand basket, feed the fire, hot take, take the heat, packing heat, catch heat, catch hell, in heat, coming in hot, holy hell, depths of hell, pits of hell, caught in the crossfire).
Fluidity
Fluid — cold (4: wind chill, cold spell, in cold blood, the water cooler effect); fluid — solid (*21: sweating bullets, blood in the streets, bleed dry, blood from a stone, it makes my blood curdle, blow hard, wet your beak, wet your whistle, bread and butter, bell weather, hard liquor, ghost town, flood gates, a watched pot never boils, building castles in the air, city slicker, a steaming pile of shit, milk dry, surf and turf, chain smoker, heavy smoker, water under the bridge); fluid — static (7: paint a picture, cry yourself to sleep, dead in the water, Dead Sea, stay afloat, lazy river, god rest your soul); fluid — order (4: rinse and repeat, bloodline, lick into shape, paint yourself into a corner); fluid — dark (7: midnight oil, blue wave, blue blood, dark cloud on the horizon, nothing but blue skies ahead, blue sky thinking, out of the clear blue sky); fluid — down (18: teardrop, blow me down, rain down, trickle down, watered down, what it boils down to, under your breath, breathing down my neck, melt down, low blow, low float, plant a flag, under the weather, undercurrent, downstream, sink or swim, water under the bridge, under the influence); fluid — in (42: genie in a bottle, it’s in your blood, make a hole in the water, butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, sapsucker, bloodthirsty, honey trap, blood and guts, spill your guts, take a deep breath, taken by storm, wine and dine, save your breath, take a breather, hold water, catch air, catch a wave, it comes in waves, into thin air, mouth watering, holy spirit, holy ghost, holy smokes, holy water, catch my drift, catch wind of, wind bag, sucking wind, pipe dream, get smoked, put that in your pipe and smoke it, gathering clouds, my cup of tea, suck some brew, heart and soul, take a rain check, hunger is the best sauce, in the next breath, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, inflow, influential, get creamed).
Dynamism
Dynamic — cold (5: play it cool, the trail ran cold, pure as the driven snow, cold brew, cool your jets); dynamic — solid (25: move mountains, roll the dice, drive a hard bargain, turn on a dime, drive me nuts, shaky ground, start shit, turn to shit, pack your shit and go, go to the end of the earth, party hard, play hard ball, go hard, throw a wrench into the works, time to shift gears, rocky start, letting go is hard, hard and fast rule, landslide, leave no stone unturned, shit rolls downhill, a rolling stone gathers no moss, it sent a shiver down my spine, if the tables were turned, hit the ground running, dry run, playing hard to get; dynamic — static (*21: going steady, fast asleep, go to sleep, jet lag, walking dead, play dead, spinning in the grave, hurry up and wait, the calm before the storm, unmoved mover, death march, dead man walking, slow your roll, still life, ride or die, ready steady go, slow and steady wins the race, steady as she goes, going nowhere fast, asleep at the wheel, change is the only constant); dynamic — order (10: play it straight, play it square, go back to square one, steer clear, smooth move, keep calm and carry on, marching orders, level playing field, rite of passage, right quick); dynamic — dark (6: jet black, blue streak, stroke of midnight, tossing and turning all night, that got dark fast, nightcrawler); dynamic — down (19: freefalling, in freefall, the rundown, swing low, turn it down, running low, down play, play it down, going down, going under, live it down, low life, race to the bottom, winding down, mosey on down, fell swoop, sweep it under the rug, wipe the floor with, bottom dweller); dynamic — in (33: fools rush in, swoop in, motor mouth, run your mouth, eat and run, eating out of my hand, going all in, play right into, hyper focused, push the envelope, turn in, go with your gut, a go getter, rock the boat, butterflies in the stomach, pull a fast one, catch on fast, eaten alive, hold on for dear life, hold sway, in a tizzy, in the mix, let’s get started, from the get go, catch on fast, in the drivers seat, drive home the point, in the running, take the money and run, ransacked, action packed, a change of heart, come into play, take your turn, take a turn).
Disorder
Disorder — cold (2: crack open a cold one, break the ice); disorder — solid (23: break new ground, break bread, breaking up is hard to do, crackpot, wild thing, crazy shit, shit kickers, wicked shit, like a wrecking ball, bust a nut, ground breaking, earth shattering, nut cracker, hard nut to crack, diamond in the rough, a train wreck, stone cold crazy, the dam has broken, when the shit hits the fan, carry coals to Newcastle, the straw that breaks the camels back, I’ll break every bone in your body, busting your chops); disorder — static (6: death spiral, a disaster waiting to happen, no rest for the wicked, crackers in bed, get up on the wrong side of the bed, strange bedfellows); disorder — order (*12: mix and match, rough around the edges, tangled web, blockbuster, method to the madness, break even, break the rules, flat broke, deterministic chaos, perfect strangers, clean break, a chip off the old block); disorder — dark (3: throwing shade, night terrors, tossing and turning all night); disorder — down (12: crack down, have a breakdown, break it down, deep trouble, let the chips fall where they may, downward spiral, drop kick, drop a bombshell, down and dirty, spill the beans, lay waste to, everything comes crashing down); disorder — in (16: mixed bag, get wasted, get wrecked, cracker barrel, crazy drawer, luny bin, foul mouth, dirt bag, belly flop, bust a gut, take a tumble, take a spill, in the wild, split a gut, getting sloppy, junk in the trunk, catch you on the flip side).
Brightness
Bright — cold (1: cold light of day); bright — solid (7: shining city on a hill, starship, flash in the pan, all that glitters is not gold, rock star, hitch your wagon to a star, red meat); bright — static (1: seize the day); bright — order (2: when the stars align, the golden rule); bright — dark (*5: it’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, blue light special, like night and day, Black Friday, Blue Monday); bright — down (3: everything under the sun, a bed of roses, farewell?); bright — in (6: lightning in a bottle, yellow-bellied, bleeding heart, light up the room, catch some rays, in broad daylight).
Upwardness
Up — cold (1: freeze up); up — solid (14: the high ground, heaven on earth, mind over matter, stiff upper lip, upper crust, hard up, high and dry, bone up, jump your bones, chalk it up to, raise the bar, pennies from heaven, my mind is made up, you can’t make this stuff up); up — static (11: over my dead body, waiting in the wings, slow on the uptake, stay up, hold up, wait up, wouldn’t lose sleep over, sleep over, dead cat bounce, rest up, hill to die on); up — order (16: a tall order, clear it up, upright, above the law, fly straight, heads up, measure up, straight as the crow flies, overrule, straight up, straighten up, shape up, clean up, a match made in heaven, high level, rocket science, overruled); up — dark (5: tall dark and handsome, fly by night, overshadow, up all night, blacktop); up — down (*7: jumping up and down, understanding, dropping like flies, it’s a rollercoaster, upside down, hang over, top down, I’m picking up what you’re laying down, crestfallen); up — in (25: top secret, overcome, get over it, right up your alley, coming up, heaven’s gate, over a barrel, up your sleeve, up for grabs, jump right in, eat it up, keep it up, take it up, a take over, keep up the good work, suck up, fed up, pull up, wrap it up, suck it up, choked up, jump down your through, hold up, holding up, get it up, catch up, caught up, top-notch).
Outwardness
Out — cold (2: chill out, left out in the cold); out — solid (23: throw me a bone, come out of your shell, out of the woodwork, out of the woods, hammer it out, the hard way, give a shit, shit out on, lose your shit, shooting the shit, beat the shit out of, went to shit, shit out of luck, freeze out, groundswell, rock out, rocks off, get the lead out, land and expand, a stones throw, a distant land, outlandish); out — static (8: pulling out all the stops, shoot to kill, lay away, beyond a shadow of a doubt, dead and gone, dead give away, bed out, wait it out); out — order (20: out of sorts, out of line, sort it out, off the grid, go figure, flat out, rule out, straight shooter, square off, squared away, block it out, smooth it over, straighten it out, bent out of shape, out of shape, out of the blocks, cleaned out, clean out of, out of control, box it out); out — dark (6: throwing shade, out of the blue, out of the clear blue sky, a shot in the dark, blackout, lay out in lavender); out — down (11: down and out, out of your depth, hang out, drop out, down cast, beyond the grave, the fallout, layout, have a falling out, thrown under the bus, the bottom falls out, bow out); out — in (*35: far fetched, in so far as, go suck an egg, out to lunch, off my chest, cast a wide net, know all the ins and outs of, out of the frying pan and into the fire, as all get out, out to get me, out of bounds, out of touch, a simple in and out, pressing on, pushing on, give in, give and take, eat your heart out, wear your heart on your sleeve, losing my mind, out of your mind, pan out, take it away, take off, take it or leave it, the takeaway, take a stab at it, suck off, in the offing, take a hike, easy come easy go, we’ve come so far, throw yourself into, press on, get out the vote, bring out the best in someone, home free, you can dish it out but you can’t take it.
Multiplicity (Many and Few)
Many — solid (5): cover a lot of ground, a lot of irons in the fire, strength in numbers, my two cents, all roads lead to Rome; many — order (4): all right, any way shape or form, all else being equal, it’s all the same to me; many — static (4): death by a thousand cuts, still and all, cowards die many times before their death, seven deadly sins; many — down (1): it’s all downhill from here; many — in (8): I’m all in, insomuch as, winner takes all, in the cards, keep it 100, too much information, all in, it’s all in your head.
Hot — few (1): hot little number; dynamic — few (2): at one go, you only live once; disorder — few (6): a wild one, not half bad, half the battle, haphazard?, a bad lot, first go; bright — few (1): one of these days; out — few (4): the one that got away, only get one shot at it, the odd one out, first out of the gate; many — few (15): much ado about nothing, much less, all rolled into one, once and for all, first of all, all for one and one for all, nothing much, a whole lot of nothing, one too many, every once in a while, every single time, two’s company and three’s a crowd, second to none, two sides of the same coin; spiky — few (1): only the tip of the iceberg.
Roundness, Length and Spikiness in Language
The story Disruptions of Roundness discusses an evidently universal human desire to disturb perceptually round objects in a variety of ways for amusement. Roundness is often mixed with heat, fluidity, disorder, brightness, motion, upwardness and outwardness, as well as high-pitch, multiplicity, and the opposites of roundness length and spikiness. It’s clear for various reasons that animals find high-pitched sounds and large numbers of things (multiplicity or many) more exciting than their opposite's low-pitch and low numbers (singularity or few), so these are included as aesthetic opposites of roundness.
Hot — round (7: a hot spot, like a hot potato, a full head of steam, hotter than a hooker’s doorknob on nickel night, hot as balls, great balls of fire, a snowball’s chance in hell); fluid — round (11: here’s spit in your eye, a spot of tea, fountainhead, grease the wheels, when life gives you lemons make lemonade, the African proverb rain beats the leopard’s skin but it does not wash out the spots, the whole ball of wax, honeymoon, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, slimeball, scuzball, just spitballing,); dynamic — round (15: get the ball rolling, running around in circles, get the runaround, run of the mill, turning point, turn a blind eye, head spinning, heads will roll, get a head start, around the clock, it’s a coin toss, turn on a dime, a leopard cannot change its spots, that’s the way the ball bounces, play ball, in broad strokes); disorder — round (18: a broken record, vicious circle, breaking point, flipped it on its head, turn the world upside down, bad apple, quit busting my balls, upset the apple cart, fucking around, mess around, a spot of bother, a spot of trouble, throw you a curveball, kick the tires, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, the wheels fell off, don’t get your balls in a twist, it’s all fun and games until somebody loses an eye, break a butterfly upon a wheel); bright — round (9: in the twinkle of an eye, sparkle in your eye, starry-eyed, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, a red cent, lightning round, moon beam, moonshine, flashpoint); up — round (7: eye in the sky, pie in the sky, all balled up, jumping through hoops, keep your chin up, keep your head up, heads up); out — round (8: trippin balls, balls out, point out, eye-popping, keep an eye out, a head trip, off with her head, heading out, knock the spots off, burst your bubble); high-pitch — round (1: the squeaky wheel gets the greese); many — round (11: all around, all around town, an eye for an eye, all eyes on, go head to head, have a lot on the ball, comparing apples and oranges, many moons, a dime a dozen, don’t put all your eggs in one basket, a third wheel); long — round (5: the longest way round is the shortest way home, can’t make heads or tails of it, the short end of the stick, headline, dickhead); spiky — round (8: keep a sharp eye out, screwball, the hairy eyeball, square the circle, X marks the spot, a sharp cookie, poking around, better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick).
Long — cold (1: it’ll be a long day in January); long — solid (4: long in the tooth, by a long chalk, he who sups with the devil should have a long spoon, long and strong); long — static (2: hold the line, the king is dead long live the king); long — order (1: the long arm of the law); long — dark (5: cast a long shadow, all night long, night of the long knives, old sins have long shadows); long — down (5: down the line, lay it on the line, a long row to hoe, the bottom line, long walk on a short pier); long — in (5: strap in, pull some strings, pulling your leg, a long time coming, a needle in a haystack); long — singular (2: the last straw, the straw that breaks the camel’s back); long — short (4: the long and short of it, to make a long story short, take a long walk on a short pier, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed).
Spiky — solid (4: a bull in a china shop, bullshit, cut the tension with a knife, sharp as a steel trap); spiky — static (3: lock horns, seize the bull by the horns, he who lives by the sword dies by the sword); spiky — dark (1: night of the long knives); spiky — down (3: catch a falling knife, fall on your sword, dipstick); spiky — in (2: pull in horns, not the sharpest knife in the drawer); spiky — short (1: short sharp shock).
Longer Aesthetic Sequences and Degrees of Excitement
Overall levels of excitement can be calculated and compared for popular expressions containing sequences of more than two references to thermoaesthetic qualities. Excitement degrees, based on the sum of distinct references in a phrase to more (plus one) and less (minus one) exciting qualities should give some idea of how agreeable we find an expression. Zero degrees of excitement, which characterizes all the expressions above, should be most agreeable and deviations from zero in either direction should tend to be less so.
So far the expression “all hell breaks loose” deviates from a zero excitement level the most, with the aesthetic structure multiple — hot — disorder — out and degrees calculated as 1+1+1+1=4. “Rain hellfire down upon” is second, with the structure fluid/down — hot/bright/fluid — down — up and 1–1+1+1+1–1+1=3 degrees of excitement. Some words/concepts refer to more than one quality at a time. These are written separated by forward slashes. For instance, since rain and tears are both fluid and downward they have the aesthetic structure fluid/down and 1–1=0 aesthetic excitement degrees.
Heat (2): Burning the midnight oil (hot/bright — dark — fluid), burning the midnight oil (hot — dark — fuid=1); fluidity (4): rain hellfire down upon (fluid/down — hot/bright/fluid — down — up=3), blood runs cold (fluid — dynamic — cold=1), sow the wind and reap the whirlwind (down — fluid — disorder — up=-1+1+1+1=2), pour your heart out (fluid /down— in — out=0); dynamism (6): live fast die young (dynamic — dynamic — static=1), go down swinging (dynamic — down — dynamic=1), living under a rock (dynamic — down — solid=-1), stir up shit (dynamic — up — solid=1), turn that frown upside down (dynamic — up — down=1), go down a storm (dynamic — down — fluid=1), going down the tubes (dynamic — down — in=-1); disorder (2): come crumbling down (in — disorder — down=-1), strike when the iron is hot (disorder — solid — heat=1), break a leg (disorder — long/solid/down=0); brightness (1): day in and day out (bright — in — bright — out=0); upwardness (3): jump right in (up — order — in=-1), what goes up must come down (dynamic — up — down=1), a rising tide lifts all boats (up — fluid — up — solid/container=1); outwardness (1): thrown under the bus (dynamic — down — solid/in=-2), don’t give up your day job (out — up — bright=3); multiplicity (1): all hell breaks loose (multiple — hot — disorder — out=4); stasis (2): still waters run deep (static — fluid — dynamic — down=0), a bed of roses (static/down — bright/fluid/multiple=1), “stop, drop and roll” (static — down — dynamic=-1); solidness (1): land you in hot water (in — hot — fluid=1), bury the hatchet (solid/spiky — down/in=0), iron out the wrinkles (solid/order — out — disorder=0); darkness (1): a dark cloud hanging over (dark — fluid — down — up=0); downardness (1): hanging over your head (down — up — round=-1), dragged kicking and screaming (down/dynamic — dynamic — high-pitch=2); inwardness (4): suck the life out of (in — dynamic — out=1), take the long way home (in — long — in), it’s eating me up inside (in — up — in=-1), in cold blood (in — cold — fluid/bright=0); roundness (1): apple of my eye (bright/round — round=-1); few (1): once in a blue moon (singular — dark — round/solid=-4).
Works Cited
Bellia, Laura, et al. “Dynamic Simulation of a Lighting System Based on the Hue-Heat Hypothesis.” Proceedings of the 16th IBPSA Conference (2019): 2434–2441.
