In his essay, “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell had some famous words of advice: “A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?”

Why did Orwell put so much emphasis on “image”—two of his four points? We all know from experience that images and metaphor give life to writing. But we’ve learned more recently, particularly from Benjamin K. Bergen at the University of California, San Diego, that metaphor not only gives the writing more life, it gives more life to our minds and body—literally.

Bergen, author of Louder Than Words, used a functional MRI machine to pinpoint the parts of our brain that light up when we read about an image. When we read, "the shortstop threw the ball to first base," the brain regions for vision and movement light up, as reported by NPR. Not only do we see the action, our action-generating brain cells fire.

What’s more, our muscles related to that action receive a trace signal at the same time. In a Huffington Post article, Bergen notes that, if you’re told Jennifer Aniston, in her new movie, learns to ride a giant tricycle, the part of your brain that sends signals to contract your leg muscles actually lights up.

So just imagine if I said, “The next time you read Orwell, thank him with a wink and a smile.” Your brain just lit up to send signals to your eyelids and vocal chords. Orwell, of course, knew this. He could feel it was true without an MRI: Metaphor sends signals through our bodies like the hum of a telegraph wire.

[Revised January 2020. Originally published November 1, 2013]