Re: Learning words

[Bill Troop billtroop@xxxxxxxx]

> This story is, from what we know about language acquisition in
> children, extremely implausible.

Perhaps it's implausible; it's extremely charming.
I am a very frivolous person and I always prefer the latter. And it
isn't it interesting how very closely entwined the older meanings of
'plausible' and charm are? Almost as if the history of the word
itself is entwined with our struggle whether to applaud (plaudere)
what is cold, serious, and therefore presumed (we don't know why) to
be more truthful; or what is warm, cheering, charming and therefore
feared to be fallacious.