Definitions matter, right?

It might be the poor website design or the typos and grammatical errors throughout the selection of “Metaphors we live by” or maybe I just don’t completely understand it at all. Perhaps, maybe it’s my understanding of metaphors altogether, but whatever the case, I am having a hard time completely agreeing with all the examples he uses.  While I do agree with the overall idea of the selection there are some lingering doubts I have about some the meanings they propose.

Or maybe these metaphors are so deeply ingrained into me that I cannot possibly escape the use of them or even imagine doing so?

Lakoff states “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” after he quotes “your claims are indefensible” as a result of the metaphor “Argument Is war”.  By his own definition isn’t he assigning the word “indefensible” in meaning specifically and exclusively to use referring to wars? That word, for me anyway, doesn’t specifically find meaning that way. Indefensible can be used in a number of ways and doesn’t necessarily mean anything that has to do with war; it could refer to a play in football for that matter. Couldn’t I make the same argument and use the same example for the metaphor “Argument is Football”? Could it be that we also use the same metaphors to relate to football as well? Are these authors breaking the associations down to what they consider to base human characteristics like battle? If so, how did they come to that conclusion?

Couldn’t we also use it as an example of simply talking about arguments?  If metaphors are really about experiencing things in terms of other things, than the definitions of these words have to be of some concern right?  When defining the term “indefensible”, “Not justifiable by argument” is literally the first definition provided by Google.  By this definition, we are experiencing the argument in terms of an argument, which means there’s no metaphor present according to Lakoff, himself. Doesn’t this negate his point to some extent?  Certainly his entire claim doesn’t fall down on this one example, however, doesn’t this prove it incomplete? Maybe I’m confused.

Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Excerpts from Metaphors We Live By (1980). The Literary Link. Janice E. Patten. 2010. San Jose State University. Web. http://theliterarylink.com/metaphors.html.