That's interesting.
Would it be that the caged monkey, being caged, was less clean that it might
have been because of unhappiness?
I remember seeing 2 elephants in the zoo standing side by side in a space
just big enough for them to stand side by side - this was Stockholm, 91 -
and allowing for differences of shape etc, as far as I was concerned they
were rocking the way I have seen - fortunately for me only on film -
children rock when they have suffered great disturbance
I remarked on this to a friend who was with me who is / was a social worker
and has the job of seeing disturbed kids... oh yes, she said, oh yes
In a documentary I saw a few years back, a chimpanzee - I think it was later
than Washoe, but it was using ASL - was told that her baby, which had been
ill and taken away for treatment, wouldn't be coming back.
Where's the baby? asked the mother. The baby had died, she was told. There
was little doubt in my mind that she understood completely, and fitted the
news into an existing concept, as they followed from her immediate reaction
through mourning
L
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Howard" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 17 January 2001 21:43
Subject: Re: unfashionable thought
| The other episode was when Washoe encountered a caged monkey that was
| making a lot of noise and generally being a nuisance. Her response was
| "Dirty monkey" which strikes me as interesting use of metaphor.
| Actually, it's even better than that. Washoe had two words for "dirty",
| one meaning just "unclean" and the other being more specifically to do
| with, er, excrement. So what she said could be more accurately
| translated as "Shitty monkey."
|