Category: eng 110A (Page 3 of 3)

source:

https://aeon.co/essays/how-to-build-a-metaphor-to-change-people-s-minds

Erard’s essay on what it is like to create metaphors as a job is a truly interesting piece and many aspects of it sparked my interest. One section that caught my eye was when Erard wrote, ” At a conceptual level, life is a journey, and arguments are wars: you take sides, there can be only one winner, evidence is a weapon”. This short phrase not only is packed full of metaphor, but is also a very accurate sentence. Arguments are wars, and although Erard says there can only be one winner, does anyone ever really win? Are these “weapons” he speaks of, the harsh words used in the war like arguments? As someone who comes from a family who argues like its a sport, for the sake of proving they are right, I can attest to the fact that no one ever wins, theyre just satisfied with the aftermath. Another quote that stuck with me was the metaphorical phrase: ” There was a problem: people values the orchid and looked down on the dandelion”. With this phrase, it is meant to articulate how some children do well, while others not so much. He writes,” the culture said they should value the rare, beautiful thing, not the sturdy weed”. This speaks values for how society works nowadays. Metaphorical speaking seems intimidating, I cant even imadgine how Erard could possibly do it as a job.

From the first watching of his ted talk, James Geary opened my eyes on the interesting network of thought that is the metaphor. I truly think that going through the transcript of his talk proved to deepen my understanding of his points even more. Having to think of the visuals used in the ted talk video and connect them to the transcript and write them down really imprinted them into my memory. Geary connected metaphor to music by mentioning Elvis, and his song “All Shook Up”. This connection had me wondering how many metaphors could be present in some of my favorite songs, which as it turns out, there is a lot. I did also notice that some of the tests mentioned in the talk, like the Stroop test, connected to things I learned in psychology last year. This connection helped me to understand how many aspects of my major can connect to my other subjects, since we learned about cognitive dissonance last year. I think this connection showed how vast metaphorical thought can be, and how it “keeps the mind shaking, rattling, and rolling, long after Elvis has left the building”.