Social Semantics as an online discussion and forum for deliberation on the power of words and their meaning. Whether anecdotally or more profoundly, I hope to contribute posts at least on a monthly basis, zeroing in on a particular idea or theme and hopefully sparking a dialogue with like and not-so-like minded readers.

Semantics |səˈmantiks| n.
The branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. There are a number of branches and subbranches of semantics, including formal semantics, which studies the logical aspects of meaning, such as sense, reference, implication, and logical form, lexical semantics, which studies word meanings and word relations, and conceptual semantics, which studies the cognitive structure of meaning.

July 03, 2008

From the mouths of babes

The other night as I was getting my four-year-old son ready for bed, I asked him what story he wanted me to read. We'd been festering in a Walter the Farting Dog phase for a little while, so I was hoping for a reprieve from the rhyming tale of canine flatulence...even if only for one night. 

Leaning over the bookshelf in the playroom across the hall, I began offering up titles of other stories from which my discerning heir could make a selection: 

 "What about Where the Wild Things Are?" 

"F*cking Sucks" he replied from under the covers in the other room. 

Did he just say what I think he said? No…I must have misheard him. Where could he have picked that up? I offer up another choice.

"Ok, what about The Paperbag Princess?

"F*cking Sucks!!" he repeated...now clearly annoyed with me. 

Thinking that my kid has picked up some choice vocabulary at daycare, I made my way across the hall to his bedroom and asked him to repeat what he just said...

"F*cking Sucks," he said again – only this time he said it while holding out a book over his head with both hands. It took less than a second for me to recognize the cover of one of our favourite bedtime stories, Fox in Socks by Doctor Suess. 

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