The reading “See through words”  by Michael Erard explained the struggles and meanings of writing metaphors. One point that he made that personally stood out to me was that metaphors should be based on category and “speak to generalities” not specifics. This made a lot of sense to me because in order to make a metaphor that makes people think or be able to understand something in a clearer light, it has to be more general than specific. This way people can think of the metaphor in many different lights. For example if the metaphor was “time is a destroyer” people could see this in many different ways such as things are destroyed overtime and lose value, or it could be thought of as procrastination in a way. However, since a “destroyer” is a generalized term not a specific destroyer, we are able to think of many different ways that time is a destroyer.

Another point that Michael Erard made in his writing, was that sometimes metaphors can cause a negative emotional response. Typically, metaphors are supposed to give positive emotional responses to those who think about them. However, sometimes metaphors can cause a negative emotional response. Take, for example the metaphor that was mentioned in the reading about the dandelion being children who succeed in a variety of environments, and the orchid being children who succeed in only certain environments. People had a negative emotional response to this because they assumed that it meant that the children who were able to succeed in a variety of environments, like the dandelion, are common and looked down upon, while the children who were only able to succeed in certain, specific environments, like the orchid, were rare and more beautiful than the dandelions. So the metaphor needs to be thought out very carefully and seen in every view possible, so when it reaches the public, it does not cause a negative emotional response.

Lastly, a point that the author of “see through words” mentioned that stood out to me was that in order to make a good metaphor you need to create a list of general objects or categories that could be used in many metaphors. Then when you are trying to make a metaphor, you can go through the list and really think about the comparison and if it might cause a negative emotional response to it’s readers. Overall, “See through words” was a great piece of writing and truly opened my eyes to the meaning of metaphors in conversation.

Annotations of “See through words” by Michael Erard: