Another Response to Lakoff

While, Lakoff's book tells many interesting stories, I am finding myself more and more frustrated with her. I want to stop hearing stories, and start hearing something more concrete, more informational.

Now that I have vented, I did find a few parts of this reading interesting, but the parts that were not stories. On page 125, Lakoff states, "The construction of an event's meaning is a collaboration between the actions of the participants themselves, later interpreters, and finally, all of us, both makers of meaning and receivers of it." I found this quote interesting, and also important because it is quite possible and easy to interpret something wrong from the media. However, this wrong interpretation could also easily turn into a new interpretation if the majority of the public interprets it incorrectly. Does that makes sense? I know a lot of times, I see a commerical and I go, "what?", not understanding what they meant. I then figure out what i think it means and probably complain about that advertiser and their not so understandable commercial. This is a very trivial thing, but when it comes to a misunderstanding of our own world or society it can be a lot more unsettling, especially if it is a negative misunderstanding. Therefore, meaning is not just what the original messenger states. It is a full collaboration of the messenger and the receivers.