The Organized Mind: The Science of Preventing Overload, Increasing Productivity and Restoring Your Focus

by Daniel J. Levitin

For example, every language contains primary and secondary plant and animal names. In English we have fir trees (in general) and Douglas fir (in particular). There are apples and then there are Granny Smiths, golden delicious, and pippins. There are salmon and then sockeye salmon, woodpeckers and acorn woodpeckers. We look at the world and can perceive that there exists a category that includes a set of things more alike than they are unalike, and yet we recognize minor variations. This extends to man-made artifacts as well. We have chairs and easy chairs, knives and hunting knives, shoes and dancing shoes. And here’s an interesting side note: Nearly every language also has some terms that mimic this structure linguistically but in fact don’t refer to the same types of things. For example, in English, silverfish is an insect, not a type of fish; prairie dog is a rodent, not a dog; and a toadstool is neither a toad nor a stool that a toad might sit on.