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Musings on Language
I often think of my brain as a dual-carriage highway. Every day there are the thoughts speeding along the fast lane, in a hurry to get to the destination. They are frenetic, focused on the here and now. On the flipside, there are always many more thoughts in the slow lane. Most days, these slow moving thoughts go unnoticed. They are humming along, blending into the background and simply taking in their surrounds. Occasionally, the roads get quiet. Momentarily, there are no thoughts in the fast lane; fast, noisy and taking up space on the road. The thoughts in the slow lane come into view, and we get to see the myriad views they have absorbed in their travels.
Today, the fast-moving thoughts in my brain disappeared for a moment and I became aware of the scenery that the slow-moving thoughts have been absorbing over the last few weeks. That scenery has been littered with thoughts about language.
I am a native English speaker — Australian English, to be precise. I don’t have a second language, although I’ve retained some of my school level French lessons and I’ve picked up a smattering of tourist-ready phrases from my travels.
