Acting On Is Transferring An Object

Transfers

When you act on someone, you give them something. This metaphor maps the physical act of transferring an object from one person to another onto the abstract concept of one agent affecting another. It belongs to Lakoff’s Event Structure metaphor system (object case), where causation is understood through the transfer of objects rather than through movement across locations. The transfer frame provides a clear three-role structure: an agent who gives, a patient who receives, and a thing that passes between them.

Key structural parallels:

• Effects as transferred objects — “She gave him a hard time.” “He handed her a compliment.” “They dealt him a blow.” The effect of acting on someone is an object that moves from actor to recipient. This objectifies effects — they become things with weight, shape, and trajectory.
• The agent as sender — “She sent him a warning.” “He threw her a look.” “They passed the responsibility to him.” The person who acts is the person who initiates the transfer. Agency is mapped onto the act of giving or sending, which makes the actor’s intention feel like aim or direction.
• The patient as receiver — “He received a shock.” “She took a beating.” “They got what was coming to them.” The person acted upon receives the transferred object. This frames the patient as someone whose role is to accept or absorb what is given, which can imply passivity.
• Intensity as force of transfer — “She hit him with the news.” “He threw everything he had at the problem.” “They hurled accusations.” A more forceful transfer corresponds to a more intense effect. Gentle giving is gentle action; violent throwing is violent action.
• Reciprocity as exchange — “She gave as good as she got.” “They traded insults.” “He returned the favor.” When both parties act on each other, the metaphor becomes a two-way exchange, mapping mutual action onto commercial or gift-exchange logic.

Limits

• Not all action involves two parties — the transfer model requires a giver and a receiver, but many actions are self-directed (deciding, reflecting) or non-directed (wandering, resting). The metaphor has no natural way to represent action that does not affect another entity.
• The object model makes effects feel discrete — transferring an object is a bounded event with a clear before and after. But many effects of action are gradual, diffuse, or continuous. The slow erosion of trust does not transfer like a package. The metaphor makes it hard to talk about effects that seep rather than land.
• Receiving implies acceptance — in a physical transfer, the receiver ends up holding the object. But in many causal situations, the person acted upon does not passively receive the effect. The metaphor underrepresents resistance, deflection, and transformation of effects by the patient.
• The three-role structure oversimplifies — real causal chains involve mediators, amplifiers, dampeners, and feedback loops. The transfer metaphor flattens all of this into giver-object-receiver. Complex systemic causation is invisible in this frame.
• Transfer implies depletion — when you give someone an object, you no longer have it. But when you give someone a hard time, you do not lose your capacity for giving hard times. The metaphor’s conservation logic does not apply to most forms of action, but it can still influence reasoning (e.g., the idea that giving attention to one person takes it away from another).

Expressions

• “She gave him a piece of her mind” — acting on someone as transferring an object (a piece of mind)
• “He dealt her a blow” — causing harm as distributing a harmful object
• “They handed down a verdict” — authoritative action as passing an object downward
• “She threw him a lifeline” — helping as tossing an object to someone
• “He got a raw deal” — being acted upon unfairly as receiving a bad exchange
• “They traded insults” — mutual antagonistic action as reciprocal object transfer
• “She sent him a message” — communicative action as transferring an object across distance
• “He passed the buck” — transferring responsibility as passing an object to the next person
• “She hit him with the truth” — delivering information forcefully as striking with an object

Origin Story

This metaphor belongs to the object-case variant of Lakoff and Johnson’s Event Structure metaphor system, documented in the Master Metaphor List (1991) and elaborated in Philosophy in the Flesh (1999). The Event Structure system has two parallel versions: the location case (states are locations, changes are movements) and the object case (attributes are possessions, changes are transfers). ACTING ON IS TRANSFERRING AN OBJECT is the object-case counterpart to the location-case mapping where causing change is forcing movement. The transfer variant is grounded in the infant’s early experience of giving and receiving objects — one of the earliest forms of social interaction — and it structures a vast range of English expressions about interpersonal causation.

References

• Lakoff, G., Espenson, J. & Schwartz, A. Master Metaphor List (1991), “Acting On Is Transferring An Object”
• Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. Philosophy in the Flesh (1999) — the Event Structure metaphor system, location case and object case
• Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. Metaphors We Live By (1980) — ontological metaphors and object-transfer schemas