Down the Rabbit Hole - that was Lewis Carroll in 1865 and it was Alice falling down a rabbit hole to find herself in Wonderland.
The idiom is often used to describe a person who is researching a topic on the internet or exploring new things on the web. Many websites are designed to keep users engaged and those that are most successful at keeping a user's attention are described as "rabbit holes".
That makes Carroll's Down the Rabbit Hole a "dead metaphor" - it is a figure of speech which has lost the original imagery of its meaning - typically by extensive, repetitive, popular usage or by an obsolete technology or forgotten custom.
Take something like the expression deadline - its original usage referred to lines that do not move, or a boundary in a prison which prisoners must not cross (or else). Much later the sense of a due date came along - it resurfaced in 1917 as a printing industry time limit.
It is curious and interesting to read about the long past dead metaphors. But then, technology changes so fast that we can see a few from our own generation:
Roll up the window
Glove compartment
Sound like a stuck record
Hang up the phone
Carbon copy
Stay tuned
Video footage
All good fun.
It is the windy lake season coming up. November turns into Snowvember as the Lake Effects take "effect". Is there snow in our forecast this week? Maybe even tonight after the children have finished trick or treating.
