Blog 1

When I first read Geary’s ideas on metaphors, I found myself almost having a difficult time believing how prevalent Metaphors are in our lives and our everyday means of communication. As someone who enjoys writing and reading the workings of good writers in their free time, I was well aware of the prevalence of metaphors and other figures of speech in the world of literature. However, I now realize that I was failing to understand just how much even I, use metaphors in everyday situations. Reading the transcript for the second time around, and having the ability to annotate it and write down my thoughts in real time as I was reading, really allowed me to take note of the little details that I hadn’t noticed before. For example, when Geary defines metaphors as ‘the process of giving the thing a name that belongs to something else’ really got me thinking about metaphors in a new way. Additionally, when Geary goes on to say that the first of understanding a metaphor is pattern recognition, made me realize that as English speaking individuals, we are able to both say and comprehend metaphors and other figures of speech without thinking about it. However, when we really stop to think about what the process our minds go through when using and understanding metaphors, we realize that we are subconsciously following a series of steps. Something in our brains are able to recognize that a the metaphor is not a literal statement, and then apply it to the context in which it is used to reveal the ‘hidden meaning’ of the term, so to speak. And the fact that we use these terms so often and so effortlessly (six metaphor a minute according to Geary) is mind-boggling to me. Many points throughout the text was interesting to me, however it was this that really made me stop and reconsider my preconceived notions about the way we speak.