Mark Mandel wrote: > would use nonlinguistic gestures. If I were working on a song with > someone, I'd say, "How about this?", and play what I was thinking of. You might even be able to drop the "How about this?" depending on the context (Jazz). We communicate in a wide variety of non-linguistic manners all the time. As for thinking, much of my thought has little if any connection to language as I understand it. I would echo the spatial/visual description of the process. Isn't there a physiological connection to the translation of creative thought into language? The whole left/right brain theory, thin vs. thick corpus callosum , etc. I'm way out of date even with lay understanding of all of this, but did the genetic study address any physiological connections to go with the observations on language acquisition? These distinctions also contribute to the difference between verbal and nonverbal expression. David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > I'm a counterexample. To me "non-verbal thought" is an oxymoron. > Writing badly is to me a clear sign of thinking unclearly. And so > forth. (Professional software developer since I was 15 years old, in > 1969). > > I also do reasonably well taking things apart and putting them > together, for that matter. I think it's why I can often give *useful > instructions* about this stuff to other people. I'd say this is an indication that you have both strong verbal thinking ability and strong spatial/visual thinking ability along with a facility that has been described to me as dependent on the physical structure of the corpus callosum to translate the latter using the former in order to communicate it to another person. The only other contribution I have time to add at the moment is to point to two examples of language "growth", while at the same time affirming that I do not like the use of office as a verb or different as an adverb. (A different way to office. Think different.) 1) How many meanings can you think of for the simple monosyllabic English word 'box'? How many of them are new in your lifetime? 2) There is a children's book _Frindle_ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0689818769 that is worth checking out (at your local library or bookseller as you choose I am not intending to advertise for Amazon). Casey