blog post #4

Although Richards writing was very difficult to understand, reading the highlighted passages simplified the main points and through context clues and my basic knowledge of old English style writing I was able to come to an average understanding of each excerpt. For example, in the first excerpt I believe that Richards main point was that there is no wrong way of using a word. Which relates to our discussion of remixing in class because we are focusing on the idea that everything is basically recycled words, we reuse and "remix" sentences and words to make this new meaning, similar to what Richards is saying except we focus on the bigger picture (like combining sentences or even changing little modes in movies to come up with a completely different story line) opposed to him focusing on singled out words.
In an overall focus of the excerpts I concluded that Richards main idea was the faults of the traditional doctrine of usage. Hes argument is that the doctrine brings up misunderstandings of how a word could be used and that although there is no wrong way of using a word, a words overall meaning stands the same and its up to the surrounding context to be able to understand the true meaning of the word. This is why there is no wrong way of using a word, there is only misinterpretation of words but not a misusage of them.
Basically his excerpt was very confusing to understand, and very difficult to read. But overall I believe that he was trying to exemplify that words alone don't have a pre-determined meaning, but in fact they get their meaning from what surrounds them. Which is relatable to our discussion of remixes because just like the word, it is about the change of modes and the way that the creator portrays the work that make it "original" and not a plagiarized idea.