“If you’re hungry, and in a pit, it’s better to have a ladder than something to eat.”<\/p>\n
— my daughter<\/p>\n
This newly-minted aphorism resulted from a rather delightful cognitive leap, btw. She — my daughter — was eating her first toasted English muffin (with butter and cinnamon sugar) (her first, because I tend to stick to whole wheat, bought-at-the-healthfood-store type food, but I’d made Eggs Benedict for New Year’s Day breakfast and have some leftover ingredients on hand, now)<\/p>\n
and I mentioned that the only thing better than a store-bought English muffin was a homemade English muffin.<\/p>\n
At which point, the child attempted to articulate something about the irrelevance of a homemade English muffin when she had a perfectly delicious storebought one, with butter and cinnamon sugar, right at hand.<\/p>\n
What she was trying to get to, but being age seven didn’t have the precise words, was to argue for the importance of context.<\/p>\n
So absent the ability to articulate an abstraction as an abstraction, she came up with the “hungry and in a pit” analogy.<\/p>\n
I love my kid :-)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“If you’re hungry, and in a pit, it’s better to have a ladder than something to eat.” — my daughter This newly-minted aphorism resulted from a rather delightful cognitive leap, btw. She — my daughter — was eating her first … Continue reading