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<div><b>At</b><i> Tue Jul 21 08:10:24 PDT 2020</i> <b>SuStel</b> (<a href="mailto:tlhingan-hol%40lists.kli.org?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BtlhIngan%20Hol%5D%20relative%20strength%20of%20the%20epithets&In-Reply-To=%3C3c3361a8-5963-ec32-b72b-69a51bc822d4%40trimboli.name%3E" title="[tlhIngan Hol] relative strength of the epithets">sustel at trimboli.name) wrote:</a></div>
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<div>>There's an interesting anecdote in a Stephen Pinker book in which he</div>
<div>>describes a child saying /gooder/ to her parent and the parent saying</div>
<div>>/gooder/ back to the child. The child stops and says the parent is</div>
<div>>saying it wrong; that's the way /I/ talk, not you. Language acquisition</div>
<div>>is so much more than just learning rules.</div>
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<div>I've never read that Steven Pinker book before, but it's an amusing story! It reminds me of a story I once read in (I think it was) Reader's Digest. A mother said that she and her husband sometimes said "Damn it", and one day she heard her daughter saying "Damn it". She told her daughter, "'Damn it' is my word. Your word is 'darn it'."<br/>
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Well, a few days later, the mother found herself in a snafu situation. She had decided to watch her language around the kids so's to prevent the "Damn it" incident from happening again, and she said, "Darn it". The daughter said, "'Darn it' is MY word. Your word is 'damn it'!"</div>
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<div>I am going to Tahoe for a week and will be away at a place with no 'Internet, and will leave shortly. That means I won't be posting here for a week, and I won't hear about how qep'a' cha'maH sochDIch went until a few days after it's over. Just in case anyone wonders where I went.</div>
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<div>-be'qI'</div>
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