First Reading page 1-21

This reading was a little dry but has some interesting points. Something I really liked was in the first section "Semiotics The Study Of Signs". They talked about how people see signs. Well I agree with them. You don't really read that everyday signs. Like stop signs, open, close, ext. We seem to memorize those signs and there just embedded in our brains. We see a closed sign we keep going. But there are some signs we know exactly what they mean but have no idea what they are called. These signs are mostly street signs or road signs. There are these signs around turns that are yellow and have black arrows. Well we all know what they mean but what are they called?? Well for the longest time I didn’t know and it sort of bothered me. Well one day in Drivers ED in high school, a long time ago (4 years). My teacher held up this picture and said if anyone can tell me the name of this sign they will get extra credit, no one knew. So he told us to find out and the next time we had class we would discuss it. Well I know as your reading this it’s just starting to bother you... lol. Well these signs are called chevrons. The reason I’m saying this is because in the book it talked about a blue diamond shaped sign with halt on it. Well they were comparing this to a stop sign. Without thinking we see an octagon that is red and white letters we stop. But if we saw a blue diamond shaped sign we would have to read and think about it for it to sink in. it’s like driving down a curvy road and your passenger going there are chevrons up here around the next turn. The driver is going to be like what the hell are you talking about. When you hear the word chevron a yellow sign with a black arrow doesn’t pop into your head unless you know what it is.

This book does a good job of making your mind wonder in the beginning. They were talked about signifiers. Like soda and pop. My sister lives in NY and up there they say pop and it drives me nut when they come down here and say pop. Down here its soda. It just made me think of real things that happen in life that they are talking about in the book.