When we talk about space, our words almost never leave the ground. We reach for the stars, yes—but the language we use to imagine them is firmly anchored in life here on Earth. That’s one of the more fascinating insights from Kajsa Törmä, a researcher in English linguistics at Umeå University. In her dissertation, she explores how metaphors shape the way science fiction and popular culture describe the cosmos.
And the result? It turns out we can’t escape ourselves.
When the void becomes a sea
Take death in space, for example. Science fiction writers almost always borrow from the sea. A body slipping out of a spaceship through an airlock is described as a “burial at sea.” The coffin is replaced by a pressure suit; the water is swapped for the endless dark. Over and over, the same image appears—even though there’s not a single wave in sight.
For Törmä, this isn’t just a stylistic quirk. It reveals something deeper about how humans work with language. To talk about the unfamiliar, we anchor it in the familiar. But that comes with trade-offs: sometimes clarity, sometimes distortion.
Traveling through the stars—always on a “path”
Törmä combed through science fiction novels, popular science writing, and even Star Trek, looking for how movement in space gets described. Nearly always, she found the same pattern: we use verbs that suggest a journey, a road, a path. Spaceships don’t just go from point A to point B—they fly, they sail, they travel.
Even more interesting is what happens when something doesn’t fit that mold. In Star Trek, crew members don’t always fly or sail. They get “beamed.” They’re dissolved in one place and reassembled in another. No roads, no paths, no movement at all. Yet the language surrounding it still insists on direction—“up,” “over,” “between.” Our words drag the technology back onto the ground, onto a map we can follow with human eyes.
Why metaphors matter
Törmä argues that this isn’t surprising and it isn’t a flaw. In fact, it’s inevitable. Metaphors are not just decorative—they’re how we think at all. Without them, the mysteries of dark matter, black holes, or quantum physics would remain utterly alien to us.
But, she cautions, every metaphor is a double-edged sword. It illuminates one thing while obscuring another. When scientists compare our knowledge of the universe to standing in shallow waters while an endless ocean stretches ahead, the image is striking—and true in one sense. But it is, after all, still just an image. An ocean suggests continuity, depth, something unfathomable but ultimately one vast body. The universe may be something far stranger, and stranger still than our words can hold.
Bound to Earth, reaching for the stars
In the end, says Törmä, our words about space will always carry Earth’s fingerprints. That’s not a weakness—it’s our only option. Language builds bridges, not replicas. It invites us into the unknown, even if it can never fully map it.
Without metaphors, silence. With metaphors, imperfection. But also wonder.
And maybe that’s exactly as it should be: a reminder that even when we can’t picture the whole universe, we can still tell stories big enough to keep us searching.
✨ Something to think about:
What’s your favorite metaphor for describing something enormous, strange, or impossible to grasp? And what do you think it reveals—or hides—from view?
