Blog Post #4

In the first section of THE INTERINANIMATION OF WORDS, THE PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC, Richards is evaluating the relativity of the way people may communicate or the perception of language. Richard’s admits that he doesn’t believe that has any truth behind it such as to be correct or incorrect. The only thing that really defines the word is the way that it is being used or the context that it is used in. Richard’s goes on to say how if we were to look upon other writings or books that we’d see a look of misinterpretations of words as they would be used without a complete understanding of that language. One part of this section that was confusing was when Richard’s is saying that we guess about characters even though we don’t know them and we’re just told that they’re evil. The author goes on to say that we guess better when we know that we’re guessing then when we think we know. I don’t see a difference when this applied to a situation though as an evil character even though I haven’t met him this doesn’t change my persona on the actual character as he is still evil.

In the next section Richard’s discusses Symbolism and Symbols. The basic context of this section is play on words kind of. If I said the poolman is cleaning the pool it isn’t really him but whatever device he uses to clean the pool. We see a direct relationship as we as people are able to comprehend what a person is saying even though it’s not directly stated as it “should” be. I’m also confused in this section as Richard’s says context in the section even though Shakepsear can be taken multiple ways?