Metaphor is often thought of as an artistic use of language, as a device used only as an embellishment in fiction. However, all of us use metaphors daily. We say “I see”, when we in fact mean “I understand”, and we say that we attack someone’s position when we actually mean that we criticise a person’s point of view.Recently conducted research suggests that we use metaphors systematically and habitually. The theory claims that being explicit often results in long-winding descriptions. Thus, in order to avoid prolixity we import meanings from other concepts, for example from the battlefield to describe an argument. When this is done systematically, the theory refers to this structure as a conceptual metaphor. Furthermore, the theory claims that this is an effect of human conceptual thinking. Such a term implies that something is shared universally. In order to analyse the accuracy of this theory, metaphors are investigated in Swedish and British newspapers. The major aim is to see if Swedish and British speakers use the same conceptual metaphors. A second aim is to discuss the theory itself. The results show that all of the investigated conceptual metaphors are used and understood in both languages. It also shows that there are many similarities in the use of metaphors, but also a few striking differences. The differences between the languages lie in how metaphors are used and, in some cases, in employing slightly different varieties of conceptual metaphors. Keywords: conceptual metaphor, metaphors, conceptual thinking, linguistic categorisation

Metaphor is often thought of as an artistic use of language, as a device used only as an embellishment in fiction. However, all of us use metaphors daily. We say “I see”, when we in fact mean “I understand”, and we say that we attack someone’s position when we actually mean that we criticise a person’s point of view. Recently conducted research suggests that we use metaphors systematically and habitually. The theory claims that being explicit often results in long-winding descriptions. Thus, in order to avoid prolixity we import meanings from other concepts, for example from the battlefield to describe an argument. When this is done systematically, the theory refers to this structure as a conceptual metaphor. Furthermore, the theory claims that this is an effect of human conceptual thinking. Such a term implies that something is shared universally. In order to analyse the accuracy of this theory, metaphors are investigated in Swedish and British newspapers. The major aim is to see if Swedish and British speakers use the same conceptual metaphors. A second aim is to discuss the theory itself. The results show that all of the investigated conceptual metaphors are used and understood in both languages. It also shows that there are many similarities in the use of metaphors, but also a few striking differences. The differences between the languages lie in how metaphors are used and, in some cases, in employing slightly different varieties of conceptual metaphors. Keywords: conceptual metaphor, metaphors, conceptual thinking, linguistic categorisation