With regards to this afternoons lecture, I'm torn between thoughts of mind numbing boredom, or being completely and utterly fascinated. Also, I had the brainwave of possibly doing my iMap on a toilet roll.... Anyhow, during the lecture we were discussing the sliding scale betwixt iconic and abritrary signs. Putting up the word 'CAT' and such like, got me thinking about a short story I read years ago. I may be a bit sad, but not so dull as to type the whole thing out - 't'is ''No is Yes' by one of my dearly beloved childrens authors - Paul Jennings. In short, it's about a doctor/scientist who uses his daughter in a communication type experiment. He teaches her (as the title may suggest?!) that 'no' is 'yes', that 'salt' is 'sugar' etc. SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! Eventually the family home is set ablaze - but the daughter, Linda is saved. As our doctor lies in his burning abode, Linda is asked by the fire fighters whether there is anyone left in the house, and she of course says 'no.' Sad story, but pretty cool all the same. It makes you think about language which never used to interest me. Maybe I will learn esperanto. They don't even have regional variations in dialect....'ay oop chook?'.......pardon?