“Kill the umpire!” In the 150 or more years since the first baseball game was played, that demand has been shouted thousands of times by fans who believe their team suffered from a bad call by “the ump.” But do angry baseball fans really want to end the life of the man (or woman) standing behind the plate or calling outs at the bases? My limited research uncovered only one specific instance where irate fans apparently made a serious effort to kill — or at least seriously injure — the umpire. That occurred in 1887 in Cincinnati when umpire Jack McQuaid had to dodge a salvo of beer mugs after calling a home team player out at the plate. In most cases, it’s safe to say that while angry fans want umpires to feel fear or guilt over bad calls, they don’t want to send them to the morgue. To put it another way, when they cry “kill the umpire,” fans are speaking figuratively, not literally.

Figurative language frequently enters our day-to-day conversation, with metaphors and hyperbole perhaps being the most common types.

“We slaughtered that other team” means we outscored our opponents by a wide margin, not that we left them dead, soaked in blood, on the gridiron.

“Our boss threw us under the bus” means she allowed us to take all the blame for a mistake that was at least partly hers — not that she pushed us under a fast-moving Greyhound.

“I love you to the moon and back” is not meant to suggest any kind of space travel but rather love that is deep and enduring.

“That algebra test was a real bear” means the test had hard-to-solve questions, not that it had claws, sharp teeth, and a large furry body.

In most situations, there is no danger of someone misunderstanding a word used figuratively for its literal meaning. But the current ultra-hostile social climate can make it risky for someone, especially a political figure, to use figurative language. Representative Tim Ryan, a candidate for U.S. Senate, recently found that out when he called on “Democrats, Republicans, and Independents” to “kill and confront” former President Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. Did the Congressman really want to see violence or even death visited upon Trump’s supporters? Some Republicans accused him of opening the door to that possibility. One right-leaning news source noted Ryan used similar “kill and confront” comments when he faulted Trump’s rhetoric for inciting a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas in 2019. If Trump’s provocative words could lead to violence, why couldn’t Ryan’s? However, I doubt Ryan meant for his words to inspire murder attempts. His TV campaign ads suggest he wouldn’t do anything worse than throw footballs at MAGA supporters.

Let’s switch gears and look at some potentially violence-inducing rhetoric used by people involved in the January 6 attack on the Capitol. During and after that incident, rioters called for Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to be shot. More figurative language? Maybe, maybe not. I am inclined to believe the calls for Pence’s hanging fall into the figurative category. There were a couple of guys running around, holding nooses, but as I recall, they were too small to be used in executing someone. The threat to shoot Pelosi is harder to dismiss. At least some of the Capitol intruders had firearms, and it’s scary to think what might have happened if one of them had a face-to-face encounter with the Speaker of the House. It’s also worth considering that the “hang Pence” and “shoot Pelosi” threats represented a genuine desire to inflict physical harm on those individuals, even if (perhaps) the harm fell short of homicide.

My message on using figurative language ties in with what I’ve written earlier about the risks of inflexible words. Use language cautiously and judiciously, consider what the consequences of your words could be if their meaning is accidentally or deliberately misconstrued. You never want your language to paint you into a corner or leave you up the creek without a paddle.

Note: Author and journalist Bonnie Kristian wrote an excellent essay on different scenarios that might have unfolded on January 6 if one or more rioters had a direct encounter with Pence or Pelosi. Here’s a link to Kristian’s piece: https://theweek.com/articles/966155/capitol-mob-have-killed-mike-pence.