It's well known that between the ages of approximately one and five, the offspring of Homo sapiens slowly, and at times lopsidedly, do something called learn to speak.
They acquire some key words, lunch, cat, mummy, fart, assemble some basic grammar, and are, by the time they're the size of a chair, well on the way to one of the key markers of human competence.
Except for one thing.
Shortly after they learn to speak, children also learn, as it were, not to speak.
At first, they aren't very good at not speaking, which is why for a precious time, they're very funny indeed, as well as occasionally rather excruciating.
They use their newfound linguistic skill to come out with utterances like, 'Granny smells under her legs, ' 'Jane looks a bit like a giraffe, ' and 'Can you put a poo back in your bottom once it's come out?' Then, sure enough, to the mixed relief of the adults around, children learn not to speak.
They become careful custodians of their more charged insights.
Out go the large questions, rude observations, and naked confessions.
By eight, they know how to say, 'I'm very well, thank you. How are you?' By 11, they might tell you, 'I don't mind that my parents are getting divorced. I get to go to Disneyland.' And by 17, pretty much all of the wonder and pain of being alive has ceased to make it out of their lips.
Something evidently goes astray, so much so that we might posit that becoming a true adult might rely on going in the opposite direction, on a process of remembering how to speak once again, in emotional rather than grammatical terms.
