How in the World Did We Learn to Talk?

I guess the experts tell us that talking started a long time ago, before we knew about nouns and verbs. Now how did that happen? I mean, when I started the fifth grade, my teacher stood in front of the class and said, “A noun is a person place or thing.”

So, how was it that I learned to talk, probably about the age of two. Oddly, I stated using nouns and verbs the way I was supposed to and it would be years yet before I would know what a noun or verb is.

My guess is the talking came first. I suspect not many Romans knew what nouns and verbs were. Nonetheless, they communicated well. Many people today are still reading their writings.

Someone, someday decided to come up with some names for words and rules on how to use them. Truth is, I have no earthly idea when that happened.

Somehow, for, perhaps hundreds of years, we got along without the rules. How can that be? How did we manage to survive without the rules. I wonder if we need them now.

Is it really necessary to know what a dangling participle is? Do we really need to know what an adjective phrase is? Really, for thousands of years we got by without knowing about any of it.

What’s more, 3 and 4-year-olds communicate pretty well without knowing about the existence of parts of speech. Now how is it that they do that?

I am not saying that we don’t need to know some of that. However, I do believe there is too much emphasis placed on it. I mean it is possible for a person to know a lot and not know anything.

The day that Abe Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address, another man spoke for a long time. He was considered to be an expert orator. Yet, today, few if any know his name or what he said.

I don’t know what he said, but he talked for 2 hours and his name was Edward Everett. He was very well educated. You can verify it by looking his name up on the internet. He had credentials as long as my arm, maybe a little longer. I think Abe knew a whole lot more.

Baffled

Baffled is the Word

I had to think this one over for a long time.  I had a hard time to think of the right word.  I passed on several words, such as confused and perplexed.  It just is that those words just simply don’t work.

Let me go back to my high school days when Life Magazine just might have published one of the best articles they ever wrote.  Actually, it was a series.  Though reading has always been one of my least favorite things to do, I read the entire series, very carefully.  If I had the series in front of me today, I would read it again.

I actually think it would be good for every high school kid to read it, maybe an updated version.  It certainly didn’t hurt me at all to read it.  There was a wealth of info in that series.

I guess the one part that fascinated me the most was the part on the brain.

After I read it all, some parts rereading it, I came to a conclusion.  We know very little about the human body, me even less.  The article on the brain just absolutely baffled me.

They described all the workings.  They wrote about the nerve cells and synopsizes.  I read about the chemicals and how different parts of the brains did different things.  But the question always came back, “But how does it work?”

I think I can safely say that only God knows.  I suspect even the angles haven’t a clue.

I really, really wished I had been smarter.  I could have become a doctor.  I could have done many people a lot of good.  I really would have liked that.  However, truth be known, the doctors, with all the research and learning, don’t really know the human body and how it works.

They have only begun to break the surface.  In a way, that might be good.  Too much knowledge can be dangerous.  With the knowledge they have, look at what they are doing with it.

They are turning girls into boys and boys into girls, but not really.  They yet do not have that knowledge.  They just think they do.

My wife was very smart.  However, she never got by basic math.  Working with letters as numbers totally confused her.  She had to take a semester of algebra in order to become a respiratory therapist.  Before she retired, she was very good at it.  She was never a doctor; however, she had to learn a lot of the same things that doctors learn.

When she got her degree, she knew the name and location of every bone in human body.  Me, I know the basic ones but I could never in the world learn all the names of them.  She learned 100s of medicines, their names and their uses.  But algebra, she couldn’t get past the ABCs.

It is more common than many might think.  I have seen many who are so knowledgeable and skilled in one area, and they can’t seem to get past the basics in other subjects.

Very rarely, you might come across someone with knowledge in a wide variety of subjects.  I guess, to some degree, Benjamin Franklin was that way.  He was likely a person who could converse with just about any kind of specialist… at least in his day.

I suppose it might be a way to keep the brain from being overloaded.  Can you imagine someone that would be right at home at a dozen or different skills or specialties?  Just remaining current in the different fields would be taxing on the brain.

And so it is, baffling is the word I must use.  How do we learn all we know?  Then too, how is it that people can be so intelligent in some areas and so lacking in others.

And it was, a short time ago that I learned of some very intelligent people who are not backing Trump.  Some, indeed, are backing Kamala.  It is baffling.  I think Pence is likely a pretty smart guy.  He must know what will happen if Kamala gets in there behind the desk in the Oval Office.  Yet, he has refused to back Trump, or at the least stay silent.  It does make me wonder who, if anyone will he vote for, and why.  Hopefully, it is not because of his ego.

Then, the one that really surprises me: Oprah Winfrey.  Now I don’t know her personally.  I have never talked to her, nor have I spent a lot of time listening to her.  However, one cannot live in today’s society without knowing a thing or two about her.  I must admit that I have a great deal of respect for her.  She is brilliant.  She has a true love to help people.  I suspect she would help more folks if the government would just get out of the way.

I have heard her speak and I must say I have been impressed by the way she speaks on many subjects.  She has accumulated a great wealth.  It takes some understanding of economics to accumulate it and organize it.

So… I went into my word search.  I settled on the word, “baffled,” when I heard her solidly back Kamala for president.  The one thing that baffles me so much is, when you consider all the harm that Kamala has brought on this world, as well as her current boss, how in the world could Oprah back a person who is so obviously dishonest?  She must know of all the lies she told during the debate alone.

I tried to reason it out but I think it broke my reasoner.  I would say it confused me, but that wasn’t quite the word.  It goes far beyond my understanding.  She has access to more info than I do.  She has had the opportunity to speak with Kamala.  She knows her history and she knows what she will do if given the chance.

I’m not sure, but I think she has meant and spoke with Trump.  She has seen what good Trump did.  She saw what Old Joe did.  It would seem she is totally without the excuse of ignorance.  I can, understand, to some degree, a person being deceived by Kamala.  But I’ve got to say that Oprah Winfrey is going into this eyes wide open.  No ignorance.  No deceit.  It absolutely defies logic.

I can’t imagine it being some kind of financial agreement.  It is so, so difficult to bribe someone who has more money than she knows what to do with.  Still, it does not remove the possibility of some kind of agreement behind the scenes.

Truthfully, I don’t know.  As I said, it’s baffling.