1. It is often said (and makes sense to me) that except for a small set of standardized/memorized verbal routines (Have a nice day!), almost every sentence we produce or encounter is a unique combination of words never before written or spoken. This suggests that a mental grammar that emerges in early childhood empowers us to (almost effortlessly) express anything in a unique way. Unique, as in, never previously uttered in the history of the human race.
Example:
This morning Spud helped me cover my feet in honey. (And most of the other sentences in today’s flotilla of balloons.)
2. Isaac Asimov, adventurously curious even as a small child, once replied to a question from his mother by spitting into his hand a squirming mass of live isopods (aka pill bugs, roly-polies, wood lice). She had asked why he was making such weird faces. He said he had wondered if a mouthful of the little creatures would tickle his tongue. Maybe Wallace will grow up to be as wonderfully creative as Asimov. Or, dare it be said, as Will Henry.
Thus:
When the ants finally found the honey, it tickled like crazy!
1. It is often said (and makes sense to me) that except for a small set of standardized/memorized verbal routines (Have a nice day!), almost every sentence we produce or encounter is a unique combination of words never before written or spoken. This suggests that a mental grammar that emerges in early childhood empowers us to (almost effortlessly) express anything in a unique way. Unique, as in, never previously uttered in the history of the human race.
Example:
This morning Spud helped me cover my feet in honey. (And most of the other sentences in today’s flotilla of balloons.)
2. Isaac Asimov, adventurously curious even as a small child, once replied to a question from his mother by spitting into his hand a squirming mass of live isopods (aka pill bugs, roly-polies, wood lice). She had asked why he was making such weird faces. He said he had wondered if a mouthful of the little creatures would tickle his tongue. Maybe Wallace will grow up to be as wonderfully creative as Asimov. Or, dare it be said, as Will Henry.
Thus:
When the ants finally found the honey, it tickled like crazy!