In Steve Mentz’s Ocean: Deterritorialzing Preface, he suggests that we reframe our thinking of how we use language to think about culture and environment by exchanging land-associated metaphors for oceanic ones. In the opening paragraph, Mentz challenges, “What happens to ‘grounded’ metaphors when everything solid becomes liquid? Let’s start by swapping out the old terrestrial language for saltwater terms” (xv). By proposing these seven new words, Mentz asks us to change our perspective of these terms through the medium of water.

One striking passage that stuck with me was under his explanation of the word “distortion (formerly clarity)” where he writes, “Water bends light. Water-thinking makes distortion a baseline condition” (xvii). On land, clarity and stability are things that are highly prized by us humans but water, on the other hand, resists that clarity by refracting images and creating a visual distortion. We cannot hope to understand the ocean if we cling to the idea of perfect transparency.

Later, Mentz turns to the word horizon as a metaphor of possibility, “I imagine horizons as sites of transition, like beaches or coastlines, and also as places where perspectives merge… These are places from which new things become visible” (xvii). This description complicates the standard association of the word horizon which is a clean line where the sky meets land or the sea. The horizon is not a rigid boundary but a living and constantly shifting threshold. This way, the horizon invites us to look outward, to be more aware of what comes into view depends on our perspective and the sea itself.

With these metaphor changes in mind, reading Preface this way highlights how blue humanities thinking unsettles the habits of certainty we tend to enjoy. Each of the seven term trains us to value transition, movement, and rationality. Mentz does not simply describe the ocean, but challenges us to use it as a method and urges us be more open minded.