Bantering with my faithful companion after dropping Sarah off at school.
Me: Ok, so we are going to swing by the library and if we need to, we will hang around till our next appointment.
Sammy: Mommy, why do you use monkey terms?
Me: huh?
Sammy: You said “swing by” and “hang around”. They sound ..so …so monkey.
Me: huh? Oh….those are expressions. Hahaha...Come to think of it, you are right. These are monkey terms.
I was quickly brought back in time to my days in Uni where we grew white hairs over Halliday and Chomsky. Maybe it would be different if I did it again.
But George Lakoff and his theory of metaphors was what I based my honors thesis on. That was real and practical. That we use metaphors everyday - sometimes unconsciously.
So here I was using perhaps a playground metaphor in describing my movements or in Sammy's terms - monkey words. And he detected it.
Me: Stop clowning around. Where do you think that metaphor is taken from?
Sammy: The circus!
That’s my linguistic professor in the making -very acutely aware of the nuances of language and its play. Well, his dream job is to be a Language Professor - inspired by the Professor from Leapfrog Letter Factory hahaha. Fancy that.
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