In other words…

Remember when I wrote the post about fall weather and then complained a week or two later that ever since I wrote the post I wasn’t enjoying the fall?  I’m starting to feel that way with my writing.  It’s not that I’m not enjoying writing, but that ever since I made such a big commitment to it I can’t think of anything to write about.  So, I’m writing about not knowing what to write about, in the hope that something will pop up …  Wow, it already worked!  Speaking of pop… 

We’ve been talking to my two-year-old nephew Jack lately about how people (and some things) have two names.  It started because he refers to me as Aunt Miss, since for whatever reason my sister and brother-in-law often call me Miss.  (And, no, my name isn’t Missy or Melissa.  It’s more like “Miss” as opposed to “Mrs.”). 

Anyway, sometimes my dad will refer to me by my real name when speaking to Jack and I know that Jack has no idea who Dad’s talking about.  So, I started to talk to Jack about how everyone has two names — mama’s other name is Kelly, dada’s other name is Mike, Miss’s other name is … Starlight, etc.  Later that day my mom said something about soda to Jack, but he didn’t know what soda was.  Here in Pittsburgh, we usually say “pop” not “soda”.  So, I said, “Jack, soda’s other name is pop”.  It also came in handy as a way to explain why Diego (the bilingual cartoon character who Jack worships) has different words for some things.  Moon’s other name is luna; hello’s other name is Ola, etc.  My dad, of course, has started to have his own fun with this, convincing Jack that his cat Mary’s other name is Ralphy.

In one of Paul Auster’s books he talks about the need to create new words for things that have been altered or destroyed.  For instance, if the definition of an umbrella is something that you carry over your head to shelter you from rain, then you can’t call a broken umbrella that doesn’t keep you from getting wet an umbrella anymore, because it no longer fits the definition.  Of course, this same character ends up locking his child alone in a room for years to see if the kid will come up with his own language if totally deprived of ever hearing words, so clearly that character had a lot of issues.  I’m just enough of a word nerd that this kind of stuff is really intriguing to me.  But, don’t worry.  I’m not planning any bizarre language experiments with Jack, although I am aware that the explanation of why Diego uses different words isn’t exactly spot-on.  But, I mean, it’s not like the kid’s going to understand the concept of other countries and languages just yet.  After all, he’s only 23 months old, albeit a wildly advanced 23 months (says his completely unbiased aunt.)

BTW, If anyone’s wondering, I think the Paul Auster book is “The Locked Room” from his New York Trilogy.  I couldn’t find much about the plot of the book when I searched online, though, so I can’t be sure.