Is the metaphor of a business as garden or crop that much different from the metaphor (and subsequent legal fiction) of a corporation as person? I have likened companies I have worked for to whales (working in the belly of the beast), labor camps (working in the software gulag), and Los Angeles (time to go off to Lalaland). Why not? It seems to me, if somebody can grow turnips and sugar beets, somebody else can grow a business. Can I not say: "I make my garden grow"? How is this different, in my intent, from "I grow my garden"? (Less fertilizer and Round-Up?) Or speaking of moods and states, instead of vegetables and companies, can I say "It makes my fatigue grow", instead of "I grow fatigued"?

"The pointy-haired boss grows my fatigue with each new meeting he calls."


Ceci n'est pas un seing.