Yesterday my sister told me that the favorite word of my niece, who has just turned one year old, is “uh oh”. OK, technically that’s two words, but I don’t think my niece cares about such distinctions yet.<\/p>\n
I asked my sister whether my niece liked the word because it had only vowels (consonants can be a little tricky at that age). My sister said, no, in her experience, what little kids seem to like is the idea<\/i> of “uh oh”. That precise concept amuses them greatly.<\/p>\n
As I thought about this, I realized that “uh oh” is, in fact, the basis of all literature: The Montegues and Capulets don’t get along — “uh oh”. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy find each other incredibly annoying — “uh oh”. King Lear is starting to lose it — “uh oh”. Anakin has gone over to the dark side — “uh oh”. Rachel is a Replicant — “uh oh”. The Cat in the Hat is making a mess — “uh oh”. Gregor Samsa is having a very bad morning — “uh oh”.<\/p>\n
Without the “uh oh” there would be no literature as we know it. Most novels, plays and movies could not exist. The more I thought about my niece’s favorite word, the more clearly I realized that the pleasure of “uh oh” is something very deep within us, not so much a product of growing up in a culture where people tell stories, but rather the built-in biological precondition for story itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday my sister told me that the favorite word of my niece, who has just turned one year old, is “uh oh”. OK, technically that’s two words, but I don’t think my niece cares about such distinctions yet. I asked my sister whether my niece liked the word because it had only vowels (consonants can … Continue reading “Uh oh”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6409"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6409"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6414,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6409\/revisions\/6414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}