Nominative Determinism
We called you ‘bagpipes’ ages 4-9 because you labelled everything you saw as literal. Chairs were ‘sit-hands’, the stars ‘skylights’ (skylights were, of course ‘roof-windows’). This stopped when I took you to a Wednesday night football match and you couldn’t figure out if ‘floodlights’ passed your test.
Now we call you ‘sirens’. You don’t make sense to us anymore. We can’t gauge meaning from the words you say, only the volume and intensity at which you say it. We never see you, but on the other end of the phone call I picture your eyes flash, syncopated left and right. You’re using the correct nouns now, always, and I just wish you’d go back to ‘bagpipes’.
Maybe we can compromise and call you ‘floodlights’.