Fade In: The dining room of Chateau Steelypips, at dinner time.
"Can I have a piece of chicken?"
"No."
"But I really like chicken."
"That's nice. The answer is still no."
"But I really like chicken. Pleeeease?"
"For the last time, no."
"OK." Pause "Can I have a cookie? Pleeeease?"
Fade out
Of course, I shouldn't really complain-- I could have Kate's view of this whole exchange:
More like this
Due to work stuff, I'm very busy this week, and I don't have time to write a detailed
pathological language post, so I chose something that doesn't take a lot of explanation, but
While browser over at programming.reddit.com, I came across something simultaneously hideous and amazing.
I saw it at Julie's.
"American Music," the Violent Femmes
"California Stars," Billy Bragg and Wilco
"The City of New Orleans," Arlo Guthrie
"Song to Woody," Bob Dylan
"The Body of an American," the Pogues
Oh, I can totally see the dog saying this in a sweet three-year-old voice. Pleeeassse?
After 100,000 years (or whatever) of humans and dogs co-evolving, it is hard for us NOT to anthropomorphize canine behavior, and hard for dogs NOT to caninopomorphize human behavior.
When my dog gives me that look, I find myself thinking: "Oh, she's being so patient and polite, hoping I'll get the message..."
Do dogs really offer us unconditional love, or just that we've evolved to believe that dogs offer us unconditional love?
I don't know.
At our house (2 samoyeds) we frequently muse on whether humans domesticated dogs or vice versa.
Either way, it seems to fill a need for both species. And the level of communication and cooperation between disparate minds offers a small amount of hope for the future. On a good day.
I object less to the view than to the considerable breeze created by the tail-wagging . . .