Beyond twenty or so dog definitions, there is a multitude of kindred words. When “dog” enters your brain, a thousand of these words spring to the ready and ten thousand unrelated words recoil in retreat. A dog barks, but it doesn’t yell or shout. You can pursue someone doggedly, but you usually don’t doggedly eat a sandwich, even if it’s a very large sandwich. Words go together automatically, and you instinctively know which ones fit and which ones don’t. All of these pieces—the bits of grammar, the sounds, the spellings, the meanings and the connected words—are contained within the immense
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