stream of consciousness: children and linguistics

[violetclm]

Humankind. Mankind. Womankind. Okay, not bad. Ratkind? Childkind? That would be funny given German haha Kindkind? Perhaps languages should not be merged in such a way. Merge! Like minimalism! Minimalismkind? What would that even mean? "All those things that are instances of minimalism"? Which I guess according to some would be, umm, every sentence in every language ever? Perhaps I am misunderstanding the concept. Perhaps I just really like the prefix mis- and how it carries over into German too unlike perhaps Kindkind. Oh! So I realized the other day that misbegotten, in addition to being a scathing insult, is an incredibly logical word deriving from mis- and beget. I suppose that's not worth pointing out when you see it in print like that but I'd never put two and two together before about it. Languages (or some languages) are so full of those crazy little affixes! Unfortunately Word's spellcheck is not too fond of my attempt to talk about misbegetting people. What if I want to misbeget? I can beget, can't I? "Can" of course is not the same thing as "should" and I'm really not in a good position to go around begetting, even if I had someone to beget with. College does that to you, yes it's summer break but that's nowhere near nine months, not that that's the only time to be worried about, perhaps the least. What month is it right now, anyway? May? So that would make February the time of final begettance – not practical at all. Let's not have any babies, whomever I'm talking to. Adoption kind of works. Look, kind. Are we ever to get away from children? And kinder? And kindkinder? Kind of?