Michael Erard’s essay about metaphors was very interesting, and kept me engaged for the length of the reading. While annotating, there were a few places that I found that I had something to say back to Erard.
On the first page, Erard writes about a philosopher form the 1960’s named Donald Schön. Schön recalls a story about a metaphor that one of his colleagues came up with: “A paintbrush is a kind of pump!” In the margins next to this quote, I wrote that I did not understand this metaphor and its meaning. The essay goes on to talk more about the meaning behind the metaphor and explains how the metaphor was created, but even after reading over the explanation multiple times and allowing myself plenty of time for the metaphor to try to work its way into my head, it still doesn’t sit right with me. I am a very literal person, and I often can struggle with understanding a metaphor if it is not straightforward for the most part. It doesn’t seem right that a paintbrush can be a pump, because a pump and a paintbrush have two completely different uses in my mind.
Another part of the essay I marked up was when Erard writes about psycho linguist Dedre Genter and psychologist Brian Bowdle. These two proposed the “career of metaphor” hypothesis. In this, they predicted that people understand new metaphors more easily when they are presented as mere comparisons. The essay goes on to further explain this, by saying to tell a new metaphor to someone by using the word “like”. In other words, to just compare the two subjects of the metaphor. I like the way this works, and I can see it helping me understand other metaphors. For example, if the metaphor “A paintbrush is a kind of pump” was written as “a paintbrush is like a pump”, I would be much more invested in the metaphor, and it would make me understand it much more easily. This way of explaining metaphors would be very helpful for all metaphors that are new, especially for more literal and objective person like myself.
Below are pictures of my annotations.
I am really interested in your thoughts on the power of the word “like.” What is it exactly (about explicitly saying X “is like” Y”) that you feel better encourages your investment and/or understanding?
Your images look fantastic. Nice job! Continue to work on expanding those marginal comments. If you find yourself underlining, consider rewording the main idea in the margins–as a kind of tag for you to reference at a future date. This can be a practical place to start.
Keep up the great work!