| | Ed Thompson in 4: "I don't remember this particular story."
But, Ed posted a link to a similar story earlier with his comment about "anthropomorphizers" here.
I found that searching for this topic because I have a recent story.
This past weekend, I volunteered at "Civil Engineering Day" at the Austin Children's Museum (on my blog here). Most of the afternoon, I was making paper helicopters. Usually, I encouraged the kids to take apart any of the ones on the table to see how they are made. I explained a bit about how they work. One time, I had a piece of paper with an accidental fold in it. So, I carefully refolded it and scored it with my thumbnail. The little girl opposite me who was well on her way to a complete task, did the same thing with hers, even though she did not need to. I remembered this discussion.
On a different slant, it is wrong to assume that so-called "primitive" languages today inform us essentially about language in the distant past. Just for instance, linguists have a theorem that people do not invent words for brown and purple until after they have differentiated blue from green. You would think that the blue sky and green leaves would be "natural." These colors are all in and of our experiential world. Yet, words for them develop slowly (or rapidly at times: aquamarine, cerulean, chartreuse). In Indo-European languages, BL words denote a swelling: bell, belly, blade, blood, blue. Swelling is the basic concept. The variations express differential perceptions... over 8,000 years or perhaps 100,000. ... All animals have calls. Crows have about 30 in two dialects. Although rooted in calls, language is something else.
(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 2/20, 5:00am)
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