Blog #2

After you have read and marked Erard’s text, please choose two places that sparked your interest and engage those moments in conversation. In other words: choose two to three marginal comments that you make and “Follow The Thread.” Please incorporate an image of your annotated text into your blog (3-5 pages). You may choose to hand write or type your exploratory writing. The important thing is that your brainstorming session is legible as it appears on your blog. 

One of the first things that caught my attention in Erard’s essay was how he explained his job as a metaphor designer. He explains it as a way of making someone think and realize, and to explain the unfamiliar (2). When I first read that designing metaphors was a full time job, the first word I thought was manipulation. If you design metaphors your goal is to control how someone understands and how someone relates. I think of advertisements using metaphors to sell their products, or articles using metaphors to imply some sort of bias. However, Erard doesn’t admit at all to using his job to control people’s emotions or way of thinking. He seems like a pretty honest guy, so maybe my first assumptions are wrong.

I really enjoy it when Erard uses metaphors to explain metaphors. I feel like he is trying to slip them in, wondering whether or not his reader will catch on. His explanation of how metaphors are interpreted better when the two elements are connected makes total sense. “(A) child is a machine” (4), while maybe partially true, will not be interpreted well by most people. Metaphors take on the entire sense of the comparison word, and a machine’s connotations are not as joyful and innocent as that of a child.

Erard connects back to his job title at the end of his essay. He poses the question of how much power a metaphor designer has. Again, he explains it as “being able to assist understanding” (8) instead of him being able to control understanding. I respect his view on his job and believe that this may really be his intentions. Perhaps I would personally take the opportunity to try to control how people think. I enjoyed his concrete examples of how metaphors can assist, or control, understanding. It is crazy how much language influences human nature and comprehension.