I finally finished Steven Pinker's
The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature after maybe 3 months. I found it very interesting and informative. Pinker, who is an experimental psychologist and cognitive scientist, obviously enjoys language and its development.
In the book, he asks questions that are familiar to most people who have even the passing interest in the English language. Why are some prepositions only used at a certain time? Why does it feel weird to say, "The ant crawled
in the edge of the CD?" How come the names Sadie or Sophie make you think of either grannies or cute toddlers? How is it possible that the name I thought was unique to my child brings 3 more toddlers when I call at the daycare? How come some swear words are so cathartic? What do we make of creative curses such as "I hope you lose all your teeth except one so you can have a toothache!" or "I hope you become a chandelier so you can hang upside down all day and burn all night"? Why are we so roundabout in our praises, criticisms or requests? Isn't it interesting that people profess to want complete and blunt honesty, but then feel offended when faced with that exactly?
Those were the highlight chapters in the book for me. I was forced to examine my own folk explanations to those questions, and I realized how similar in thoughts we humans can be. Also, I learned a logic puzzle. In a BBQ party full of logicians, the hosts sees three with BBQ sauce on their faces. She tells them this and that she will come back to check and will ring the bell if they're still untidy. She will keep doing this until everyone's faces are clean, after which she can serve the watermelon. How many times will the bell be rung?
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My cousin J says he's so disappointed my recent flickr photos are of postcards and stamps, instead of new photos of family. I told him I haven't renewed my flickr pro account, so I can't upload a whole lot of pictures. I guess, I'll have to hand over 25 bucks soon. :P
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I have decided to consider
#57 - Sort through inbox, which is supposed to be cleaned out every Saturday - as done. My inbox has been consistently free of documents to be filed or unopened letters this month, so I don't need to clean it out every Saturday. Finally, this small step to a decluttered life is taken. Whereas before, I had letters, papers, documents stacked or lying in different places, I was able to designate a central area to put them until I can read and file them away. Now, I have improved my ways so I open letters immediately, sort them and file them or shred the junk. It is in this way that I'm able to keep my inbox junk mail-free. Yes!
