After rereading Erard’s essay, I found that I still agreed with most of my original comments. One thing that I took more of a notice to this time was how people were not comfortable with being uncomfortable as they read metaphors. As Erard says, people wanted certain terms, “because they’re conventional and recognizable”. That being said, people can take metaphors with comfortable terms and relate their lives to them, or even understand them better. Along with realizing this, I also took into consideration how much effort Erard put in to making each metaphor and its author credential by showcasing their education. However, I personally feel as though his “paintbrush as a pump” metaphor still does not make sense. Sure you can explain that a paintbrush moves liquids just as a pump would, but a pump can also push air through it, unlike a paintbrush. If a consumer were to look for paintbrushes and saw “paintbrush as a pump” on it’s package I feel like they would question it and not understand that both objects move liquids. Although I do not have any examples of my own, I believe there could be better ways to compare a paintbrush with another object that would be appealing to everyone, not just the designer.
Rereading the essay not only brought these views into light, but I was also able to better understand the major points that Erard made after “glossing the text”. When I first read the essay, I was unsure as to what he meant as he talked about “pseudo-mistakes” and their importance. Once I took the time to look up pseudo, I found that it meant fake/false, and was able to conclude that the term pseudo-mistake meant a fake mistake. Intended I guess you could say. Metaphor designers deliberately use this strategy to make their metaphors understandable. As if they had just been throwing words all over the floor, as Erard would say, and later examining them and testing their collaboration with the original object of comparison. If you spend hours miscategorizing an object, you may be able to find a similarity between said object and another member in that same category, as he did with a paintbrush and pump. After understanding this term, I was able to better understand what Erard was attempting to explain to his audience.
In conclusion, rereading this essay has created a better understanding, personally, as to how Erard was explaining the metaphor process, and how to create a meaningful one.
You wrote: “If a consumer were to look for paintbrushes and saw “paintbrush as a pump” on its package I feel like they would question it and not understand that both objects move liquids.”
Good point! This metaphor is definitely NOT for the consumer. OK, so if it’s not for the consumer, then for whom was it intended? Whom did this metaphor help?
Great work! Keep it up!