Some things can be a lot of different things.
Like bark. Or date. Or tie.
Most of the time, when we use the word, we have a singular meaning in mind. So. When we say we have a lovely rose garden, we don’t think about Bob and how he recently rose to the occasion. We are only considering the flower with the thorns in this case.
That’s how it is with the rest of them. Like. When I tell you that my friend Debby recently took a train trip across Canada. I’m only thinking about the choo-choo. And not how I work with my little dog Lou to train him to shake paws. Or about my Aunt Mabel’s wedding dress with the magnificent train. I only think about Debby in the box car riding through Alberta.
This all hit me the other morning. I was in the kitchen making breakfast when I heard the familiar sound. A rapping on our windows. Every day, for months on end, a cardinal obsessively knocks itself into the glass of our house. Over and over again. It starts early in the morning, around 5:30, and continues on and on and on. I know. People have said that it thinks there is another cardinal. And then you are supposed to try this or that to diffuse the behavior. None of it works here. Our cardinal does not believe there is another bird there. No. He wants in. He wants to live here. I’m sure of it.
Anyway, a few minutes later, I thought, “Good thing it isn’t the other kind of Cardinal.” You know. The Catholic kind. There are 236 Cardinals in the world, you see. It would be quite troubling if one showed up here, knocking on our window, all day, every day.
And, of course, there is the color cardinal, which is a deep scarlet in tone. I’m glad there is not cardinal on those windows. That, too, would be troubling.
At any rate, our brains can only think of one thing at a time. That’s how we are wired.
Yes, studies show that the human brain has evolved to focus on one thing at a time or to do a single task. When people think they are multitasking, they are actually quickly switching between tasks, a process called code-switching. Unfortunately, this can have a negative impact on productivity and brain health. We can think of one thing and switch to another thing quickly, though. LIke, at a rate of up to five or ten thoughts per second.
So, if you keep a bat in the corner of your bedroom in case of burglars, make sure it is the baseball kind and not the one that flies around catching insects after dark.
Those homonyms. They will get you every time.
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“Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.” — Benjamin Lee Whorf
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“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” — George Bernard Shaw
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“Words are containers for power, you choose what kind of power they carry.” — Joyce Meyer
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What’s it all about? Back again? Or is it your back?
