Precision and Poetics

When Caleb was just learning to speak, I loved to have him explain his world to me. At the time, I was in graduate school and one of the things I had to study was the development of language in children. He was always an outlier on the high side of the bell curve. He was one of those kids who rarely got frustrated by his lack of language facility because he was always able to talk his way around problems.

When he was about two he saw a large swarm of dragonflies, and he informed us: "Look, a dragonfly party!" This made total sense because while he didn't know what a swarm was, he knew what a party was.
When he wanted to describe a trail we were hiking that was under water, he called it the "juicy trail." Mom's Wisconsin house was "The sharing house" for obvious reasons.

Hannah was never as easy with her language usage; she was one of those kids who would get frustrated because we didn't know what she was saying, or at least we couldn't interpret what she meant. As the years have gone on, however, I've come to appreciate her thought process (although I still can't say I understand it.) She is a literalist who loves saying exactly what she means. She can't talk around problems like Caleb because talking around a problem means that she's not saying exactly what she wants to say. She needs precision

With this as a background, here is a conversation we had yesterday:

Me: "Here's an interesting quote. It's from Albert Camus. He was a French-Algerian writer. 'Autumn is a second spring, where every leaf is a flower.' What do you think he meant by that? (in the interest of full disclosure, I was reading the funny papers, and Mutts had this quote in it. I'm not so big a fan of Camus that I'd introduce him to eight and ten year old kids.)

Hannah: "Maybe he meant that the leaves are going to fall off the trees and decompose. After the winter, when spring arrives, flowers will grow better because of the composted leaves."

Me: "Um...well...that's an interesting point of view...."

Hannah: "Or maybe he meant that the leaves have colors like flowers in the spring."

Caleb: "I think I'd go with your second idea."

Hannah: "What's Alergian?"

Just try to explain poetry to a literalist. I dare you.

Hannah and the TorNATO

We had the NATO conference in Chicago a couple of weeks ago. Hannah began drawing a cartoon for me. She had no idea what NATO was, but she watches a lot of storm-chaser shows. After listening to the news, she decided that Chicago was in for a torNATO. Here is her artistic interpretation of our week in Chicago. (And yes, Hannah is a HUGE manga fan.)

We watch a lot of weather shows. The story starts with the meteorologist predicting the weather...

Read from right to left. These two are police officers. You can tell because they are wearing badges...sorry the quality isn't great. I'm doing my best here.

On the left, cut off in the picture is lightning and a note that we are now downtown

Of course, the storm isn't the only thing getting violent downtown!

Our intrepid police officers off to help their comrades!

...and from behind the buildings downtown comes a ???
(the word is VOOM...some people have interpreted it incorrectly)

Luckily the officers stop in time!!

Yes, the torNATO has arrived. If you look closely you can see that all the protesters are inside of the torNATO along with several protest signs. The big one in front reads "We are the 99%" (Of course, she pointed out that we are kind of like the 50%...we aren't super-rich, but we aren't poor either.)

And finally, left alone, the officers are a little bit freaked out. The meteorologist, however, is pretty pleased with himself.

And there you have it! A ten year old's interpretation of NATO! She wrote the script, she developed the characters, she drew and shaded the pictures. My photos really doesn't do her work justice. She did a very good job with black and white shading, characters, concept and execution. She was very organized. Very thorough...and she used correct spelling and punctuation. In the whole thing, only one apostrophe is missing (the apostrophe in "let's", and honestly, that's a difficult one.) She figured out all the spelling and grammar herself. I am pleased with her commas, but I'm just a geek.

No...I'm not just a geek. I'm just a proud (and geeky) Mom. That's my girl. She made me laugh. 

 I am now officially following the uh...following blog:

itsallfunnytome.blogspot.com

It's Becky and her Banditos. It's far funnier than anything that I could try to put together, but I try not to be jealous of her talent.


And the above statement demonstrates one of the bizarre things about the English language, and one which I have a difficult time with--not  splitting infinitives. If you are not aware, an infinitive is a non-conjugated form of the verb, in this case 'to be.'  In my mind, it would make more sense to say 'I try to not be jealous.' But that's not proper. 'I try not to be jealous,' is correct, but it sounds funny. It looks funny. It is funny. I'm not trying not to be. I like being after all. I just want to exist (to be) not in a state of jealousy. I want to not be jealous...to be not jealous...ah nuts.

Yet, that's how English works. I've always just accepted it. When you're in a class (or teaching a class) of 20+ students you just don't ask or answer all the possible questions that are out there. When you have only two students, you can't duck the tough questions, like "why is it wrong to split infinitives?" I think that grammar is the only subject where an acceptable answer is "just because that's how we do it."
Well, grammar and statistics, but I don't have to teach statistics.
 
 And now for a preview of Becky's Banditos....



Pure imagination, candy and beer. Mmmmmmm.
(And wouldn't Becky and Her Banditos be an awesome name for a band?)

Oh, and 3 followers!!!! 97 to go until the big prize! ( I dunno. Maybe a great big candy bar! Or lunch with Becky and the Banditos--I've got an 'in.')