For example, if you had a huge battlefield with two armies shooting at each other and all of a sudden there were a momentary pause of action for no reason, someone might say that this is just the eye of the storm as a way to imply that it’s a temporary pause and the violence will return soon. In that case, you’re speaking idiomatically by comparing the battle to a storm along with the feature of a storm, the eye.
It’s also confusing in another layer because the center of a storm being referred to as an eye is itself figurative. It’s describing the structure of a storm as resembling that of an eye. So the center of a storm is not a literal eye, but the eye of a storm is an actual structure of a storm.
The issue here is that the structure being referred to as an “eye” is idiomatic for a different reason than someone would invoke the phrase “eye of the storm” idiomatically. It’s two completely different idioms shorting out against each other. And in the case of this image, that is literally the eye of the storm.
To put it another way, all you have to do is move the quotes to fix the issue.
For example, if you had a huge battlefield with two armies shooting at each other and all of a sudden there were a momentary pause of action for no reason, someone might say that this is just the eye of the storm as a way to imply that it’s a temporary pause and the violence will return soon. In that case, you’re speaking idiomatically by comparing the battle to a storm along with the feature of a storm, the eye.
It’s also confusing in another layer because the center of a storm being referred to as an eye is itself figurative. It’s describing the structure of a storm as resembling that of an eye. So the center of a storm is not a literal eye, but the eye of a storm is an actual structure of a storm.
The issue here is that the structure being referred to as an “eye” is idiomatic for a different reason than someone would invoke the phrase “eye of the storm” idiomatically. It’s two completely different idioms shorting out against each other. And in the case of this image, that is literally the eye of the storm.
To put it another way, all you have to do is move the quotes to fix the issue.
Damn that was quite a journey but it makes sense!