Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 August 1907 — WORD SHELVES IN BRAIN. [ARTICLE]

WORD SHELVES IN BRAIN.

Indications Prove Words Are Arranged There Like Library Books. Disorders of speech, due to physical damage In the brain, show that words are there arranged somewhat like books on library shelves. When a man, therefore, learns a new language he has to provide a new shelf for Its words. This Is proved by the caße, among many others like It, of a man who, besides his mother English, learned French, Latin and Greek. Ho became word-blind In English, but still could read French, though with some mistakes, and Latin with fewer mistakes than French, while Greek he eouki read perfectly—showing that his English shelf was ruined, his French shelf damaged, his Latin shelf less so, while his Greek row escaped entirely. Other Instances show that the books may be so Jammed sidewise, so to speak, that not one of them can be got out, In which case the event proves that on ench shelf the verbs are placed first, the pronouns next, then the prepositions and adverbs and the nouns last. A man was brought to my clinic -who- could not utter a word. My. diagnosis asoril>ed bis disability to a tumor- J like swelling in the speech area, which might b® absorbed by giving him lodide of potassium. I then had blm removed so that he could not hear what was said, while I told the class that If he recovered he would very likely get his verbs first, and his nouns last When he returned two weeks afterward, on my showing him a knife he said : “You cut;" a pencil, “Yon write,” etc. Three weeks later he bad all bis preposltlona, but he could name no noun for several weeks afterward. The reasons

nre that verbs are our Innermost and first learned words, because we know that we see, we hear, etc., before we know what It Is that we see or hear; while what It Is that we see or while nouns represent'things outside of us, to which we later give names. The nouns that we learn last and therefore forget soonest are the names of persons; that Is why elderly people are ever complaining thnt they cannot recall names.—Everybody’s Magazine.