Blog #4

The beginning shows that words alone do not have meaning, as in they cannot be interpreted by just themselves, they have to be taken into context. A single word standing alone cannot be a meaning. For example, the word pretty. Pretty can be taken in a multitude of ways i.e. you're very pretty which is an obvious compliment, to the test was pretty hard which changes the context of the word. I wasn't calling the test pretty, rather than I was emphasizing the level of difficulty the test was.Another part was when Richard was talking about symbols and what they're associated with. Example would the police. Whenever you hear danger you expect that the police will take care of it, i.e. the police arrested the dangerous criminal. While in fact it was a pair of handcuffs that detained the man, not the police. The police is just the ordinary Joe doing his job but is given the label of serving and protecting others from dangers. The third part he talks about a quote from which he remember reading form a book. He didn't believe that it applied to everyone and that not everyone should follow it. The fourth part he talked about a word can influence the outcome and used music as an example. I didn't really understand this part and found it rather confusing in my opinion. I'm guessing he's talking about how certain words are phrased can stir up emotion and get a rise out of people, and although they don't work for everyone, people can adapt and find a certain meaning to each song.