Something Else

When Bow was a very little fellow, and we were still using lexigrams, he had menus for food that would go something like this: "BANANA, GRAPES, APPLE, JUICE, MORE, ENOUGH, LATER, SOMETHING ELSE". We had to include the label "SOMETHING ELSE" because while we were doing language research, we were also just a family, eating whatever foods happened to be available that day. and I could not always print out a new menu every time a new food was introduced. We would verbally tell Bow what the food was called, but if he wanted it at that meal, he would point to "SOMETHING ELSE."

In the stand up menu on the table the top right corner says "SOMETHING ELSE"
משהו אחר

To this very day, if Bow is too lazy to spell out "What is that called?" he will just ask for "something else." It means "that thing that I don't have a name for". Bow remembers the good old days when he used to eat in the kitchen and point at lexigrams. In fact, that's what he misses the most about his childhood outside the pens. It's not our long walks in the woods or the trips in the car that he longs for. He wants to eat in the kitchen. The one time he was out of the pens briefly after his confinement, he headed straight for the kitchen and swiped a muffin.  And when he complained to me early on about being locked up, what he said was: "Let me eat in the kitchen."

Bow looking over the fence on a wet day

These days, Bow is quite resigned to our living arrangement, and when I go on my long walks, he also surveys the property from his perch atop the bench on the outer pens.

Lately, I have been seeing these flowers all over the pasture, and some friends assure me that they are Missouri Primroses. But when I look up Missouri Primroses, they don't look the same. They don't even have the same number of petals. So until I know what they really are, I am going to just call them Something Else.

Now the blossom itself resembles a wild rose or a prairie rose, having pink petals and a yellow center, but it is bigger than the wild rose blossoms that we have all over my property. It can't be a Missouri Primrose because those flowers have four petals and a different center. But it is also not a Prairie Rose, even though the blossom is very similar, the body of the plant is not.

These flowers grow in ones and twos and can be seen all over, and the only time they do not have five petals is when they have been damaged, because something has eaten some of their petals.

There are many insects that like these flowers, and not all of them are pollinators.

The flowers are so pretty now. They seemed to have increased their color saturation in the past twenty-four hours, because they started out pale pink, but now they are bright pink almost to the point of lavender.

Until I know what they are, I am going to stubbornly insist that they are Something Else!

So far, I do not have this problem when I see a rabbit. I do not ask myself what kind of rabbit it is. But I would feel kind of gauche reporting that I saw a flower today, as there are so many obviously different kinds of flowers that I see every day.

I need a good way to distinguish a daisy from ... well, from something else!

News About Kanzi

Bow and I live in isolation in a protected zone inside our pens. We have an internet connection, and we subscribe to a couple of magazines, but we don't watch TV, and we don't get any newspapers, except the ones that arrive for free and are used to line the bottom of Sword's bird cages. However, when something that affects us happens in the outer world, the news eventually filters down even to us.

Yesterday, as usual, Lawrence was trying to get Bow to use his computer. Bow spelled something on the glass. (I don't remember what it was.) And Lawrence said to him: "Why don't you say that on your computer?"

Bow took the chopstick from Lawrence, strode purposefully toward the computer, poked at it once, and the computer said, in its robot voice: "Why?" Lawrence didn't see what key Bow hit, but he figures it must have been the letter Y. Nevertheless, "why" is what Bow seems to have meant. Why should I spell it on the computer when you can understand me perfectly well when I spell it on the glass?

Well, the answer might have been: so you can go on Oprah. When Lawrence was leaving, he turned to me and said: "My family tells me they saw some chimp on the Oprah Winfrey Show, and he wasn't just an ordinary chimp; he used symbols to communicate. And also, he could blow up balloons."

I raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure it was a chimp? It sounds like a bonobo. What was his name?"

"I don't know. I didn't see the show. My wife and kids saw it."

"Well, it sounds like Kanzi," I said.

"Oh, so you've heard about him?" Lawrence asked.

I smiled. "I've met him."

When Lawrence had gone, Bow said to me: "Bow is trying not to be mad that Kanzi is important."

This made me laugh. Jealousy doesn't have to be all bad. It could be a very good motivator for Bow. Then I called my mother, to see if she had caught that Oprah show. She said she hadn't. So then I googled it. It's not very hard to find. Just google "Oprah Kanzi" and immediately you'll find evidence that Oprah had a segment about Kanzi recently.

One of the articles this search led me to had a very nice picture of Kanzi, and underneath, it said: "Kanzi has English comprehension on the same level as a two and a half year old human child." That's based on a study conducted decades ago. I shared this with Bow and asked him what he thought about that. "Those people are stupid," he said.

Kanzi's comprehension is not limited to the weird novel sentences that were used to prove his understanding of English syntax. His English production ability is not limited to the lexigrams at his disposal. Anyone would sound like a two year old if limited to lexigrams and not allowed to spell out words. What primatologists manage to "prove" and what they actually know about the primates they work with are two different things.

This morning Bow was still thinking about that. Before breakfast, when I was expecting him to tell me what he wanted to eat, he spelled out: "Kanzi is not a baby. Kanzi is big. Everyone knows Kanzi is not stupid."

"Yes, you're right, Bow," I said.

Kanzi is thirty years old. And, no, he's not stupid. Neither is Sue.