|
|
In homes where the near friends and visitors
are mainly literary people--lawyers, judges, professors and clergymen--the
children's ears become early familiarized with wide vocabularies. It is
natural for them to pick up any words that fall their way; it is natural
for them to pick up big and little ones indiscriminately; it is natural
for them to use without fear any word that comes to their net, no matter
how formidable it may be as to size. As a result, their talk is a curious
and funny musketry clatter of little words, interrupted at intervals by
the heavy-artillery crash of a word of such imposing sound and size that
it seems to shake the ground and rattle the windows. Sometimes the child
gets a wrong idea of a word which it has picked up by chance, and attaches
to it a meaning which impairs its usefulness--but this does not happen as
often as one might expect it would. Indeed, it happens with an infrequency
which may be regarded as remarkable. - Mark Twain's Autobiography |
Quotations | Newspaper Articles | Special Features | Links | Search
