This movie is catering towards fans and leaving the rest of us out in the cold.<\/p>\n
The author’s latest book catered towards women and children.<\/p>\n
If you associate “catering” with food, you might be especially confused what food has to do with movies or books.<\/p>\n
But are the movie maker and author in question actually feeding their fans, in addition to giving them books and movies?<\/p>\n
As with many explanations of the English language, the answer lies in metaphor.<\/p>\n
The phrase “catering towards” means to do something in an attempt to gain favor from a specific group of people. This phrase can be used to describe the specific details of the situation or just to say someone is making the attempt.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The word “cater” is a verb that means to provide someone with food and drink, usually in a professional capacity.<\/p>\n For example, if you were a restaurant owner and would be providing food at an event, you could say you were catering the event.<\/p>\n However, when you add the word “towards” to cater, the meaning changes considerably.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Like many languages, English has a long history of using metaphors in its expressions.<\/p>\n Some of these metaphors are very detailed. For instance, when you tell someone that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink<\/a><\/strong>, you’re painting a whole metaphorical picture to make a point.<\/p>\nCatering: Not just about eating out<\/h2>\n
Catering as metaphor<\/h2>\n