I love language, and especially the intricate dances we can make it do to play with nuance and imagery. My favourite forms of literary criticism when studying English were Structuralism and Semiotics – and I make no apologies for how these approaches inform my appreciation both of the written and spoken word around me.

As an example – how many of you have looked at this blog entry’s title and assumed that this will be an item about the effects of our polya lives on a youngster? Sorry to disappoint (I lie, I hope you’re now questioning your assumptions) but this is about language.

You see, the cub has an enquiring mind and picks up concepts extremely rapidly. In this instance his Spanish teacher introduced him to the word polyglot – someone who speaks many languages and this has obviously resonated.

He proudly announced the other day that he is a polygamer – and when asked to elaborate he described his reasoning as follows:

He doesn’t play games on only one platform, enjoys playing many different games, and in those games where there are different characters, he enjoys trying out the different characters to see how differently they play. Therefore as someone who enjoys many different ways of playing games, he is a polygamer.

I suppose if I was being pedantic and insisting on a purely Greek root it should be polypaichnídi or polyagon but that introduces far too many new angles of enquiry. Sorry, not sorry.

It amused me