canting unbutton

This morning, Greta said, "I keep on can'ting unbutton these!"

We all have stories of kids plugging in grammar in odd ways. Just about every kid, when instructed emphatically to behave, has protested, "But I am being have!" It's a blast hearing all the strange things that come out when a child is learning the language.

Beyond that blast, though, is a philosophy: the idea that the world makes sense. "I goed potty!" "Look at those mouses!" — while it would be less than ideal to hear both those sentences spoken in the same conversation, they're a perfect example of a kid getting grammar right, in a sense: they show that there's a global set of rules in the kid's mind that that kid is beginning to follow. He or she might not know all the exceptions yet, but deep down it's pretty cool that an -ed on a past-tense verb or an -es on a plural is now something firmly in that kid's mind, to apply to new words and ideas.

Even if those words and ideas are exceptions. English is a language of exceptions, maybe more than other languages that aren't so mongrel. So it's frustrating for a kid. You have to learn pretty early that those rules don't quite work all the time, and you have to learn when and how they don't. Sheeeesh!

The thing is, it never stops. We are constantly guilty of thinking that the world makes sense. We apply these global rules — the just are rewarded and the unjust punished; people make economic decisions rationally — and we pay a price for it.

Again and again, we keep on can'ting unbutton the truth about life.