Bathtime; speech patterns; Orwell, pt. 2
Sick kids today. Right now they’re feeling OK; they’ve been medicated and bathed. Samuel has been granted six more minutes in the tub. I don’t want him to drown, but I don’t want to sit by the tub all that time, either. I’m a busy guy.
Sing to me, I tell him.
(I want him to make noises while I’m out of the room.)
No.
Sing “The Greatest Adventure.”
No.
(Alas, Samuel is no bathtime Pavarotti.)
I keep suggesting songs for him, he keeps saying no, and then it’s time for him to get out of the tub. That’s one way to do it.
Now the boys are chowing down on sandwiches. They wouldn’t eat the chicken noodle soup I cooked earlier tonight.
I usually drain the water out of it, says Karin.
Indeed.
Uh, says Daniel.
He means Ziva. He’s picked up the habit of saying only final syllables (or, in some cases, vowel sounds). If I put him to bed, he’ll say er, meaning pacifier. Suppose he’s talking about planets. He’ll say Nus. I’ll have to use contextual clues to figure out whether he means Venus or Uranus. He knows how to say full words; he’s just awfully casual.
Samuel, on the other hand, distinguishes every word, every syllable, every audible letter, with the utmost care. No “Mairzy Doats” for him.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
More Orwell. I’ve reached his Spanish Civil War essays. Not having read Homage to Catalonia – or any survey of that war – I find myself pretty badly out of my depth as to what all the different parties were trying to achieve. But then, Orwell’s point seems to be that the conflict was largely misunderstood outside of Spain, and that the few who did understand it used it for their own ends, as propaganda.
Interestingly, as the volume’s content becomes more complex and abstract, Orwell’s tone gets angrier. Traveling to Spain and fighting with a haphazardly chosen militia must have been a whole other kettle of fish than going, soused, into the clink for a few hours with burglars and embezzlers.
Sing to me, I tell him.
(I want him to make noises while I’m out of the room.)
No.
Sing “The Greatest Adventure.”
No.
(Alas, Samuel is no bathtime Pavarotti.)
I keep suggesting songs for him, he keeps saying no, and then it’s time for him to get out of the tub. That’s one way to do it.
Now the boys are chowing down on sandwiches. They wouldn’t eat the chicken noodle soup I cooked earlier tonight.
I usually drain the water out of it, says Karin.
Indeed.
Uh, says Daniel.
He means Ziva. He’s picked up the habit of saying only final syllables (or, in some cases, vowel sounds). If I put him to bed, he’ll say er, meaning pacifier. Suppose he’s talking about planets. He’ll say Nus. I’ll have to use contextual clues to figure out whether he means Venus or Uranus. He knows how to say full words; he’s just awfully casual.
Samuel, on the other hand, distinguishes every word, every syllable, every audible letter, with the utmost care. No “Mairzy Doats” for him.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
More Orwell. I’ve reached his Spanish Civil War essays. Not having read Homage to Catalonia – or any survey of that war – I find myself pretty badly out of my depth as to what all the different parties were trying to achieve. But then, Orwell’s point seems to be that the conflict was largely misunderstood outside of Spain, and that the few who did understand it used it for their own ends, as propaganda.
Interestingly, as the volume’s content becomes more complex and abstract, Orwell’s tone gets angrier. Traveling to Spain and fighting with a haphazardly chosen militia must have been a whole other kettle of fish than going, soused, into the clink for a few hours with burglars and embezzlers.