"Don't Use That Language With Me!" - Mom
Now I know that this is not supposed to be a book review, but I wanted to start off by saying that I really liked the way David Abrams approached the idea of language as a type of sixth sense. Now while he doesn't explicitly call it a "sixth sense" he alludes to it being a characteristic to being human that differentiates us from any other organism. What I like about it is (this might sound kind of stuck up) that it really just makes sense to me. We've already had discussions as a class and read a couple passages that encompassed a definitive and alleged "sixth sense" that involves a lot of ambiguity (and sometimes ghosts), but Abrams's take on an additional sense is very clear-cut in my opinion. Language has rules and understandings, like how different connotations are used in different situations, that we don't really teach, we just pick up on them. Society perpetuates them and therefore, they remain a part of our species. In the animal world, co...