Talky Talky

Here are two interesting/funny anecdotes relating to linguistics from the last two days.

1. I read one of those comic-book style textbooks about linguistics. It was really interesting, but then I caught myself applying Chomsky´s rules of language acquisation to my life! BF Skinner said that childrne learn language through correction and positive and negative reinforcement through their parents. Chomsky said that this isn´t true, that kids don´t just make random guesses at words, they create rules. Today, I felt myself create a rule. In spanish, coverings for things often have the prefix ¨sobre¨and then the word. I was looking for the word ¨Pillowcase¨ (and a pillowcase itself), and I called it a ¨sobrealmohada.¨ Even though that´s not the word (its almohadón), I felt my logic-brain think of how Spanish views coverings for things and what they call them. I´m learning!

2. This one is funny. We were in improv class, and we had a reading to do in English. the teacher was explaining some words in English that people might not know.
Teacher: (Spanish) Ok, so one word is ¨Joker.¨ Who knows what joker means?
Student 1:(English)Batman´s enemy
Student 2: (English)¨WHY SO SERIOUS¨
Student 3: (English) The late Heath Ledger won an Oscar for his preformance in The Dark Knight
Student 4: (Spanish) Heath Ledger died, you idiot!
Student 3: I know! That´s why I said the late
Student 2: He passed away!
Student 4: So ¨Joker¨means ¨dead¨?
Teacher: (Spanish) Ok, let´s move on. Theater of the Oppressed was founded by a Brazillian, Agusto Boal, who actually died about a year and a half ago.
Student 2: What a joker