At times, Alex’s talking made perfect linguistic sense. For example, once when Irene was fuming about a meeting in her department and walked to the lab with angry steps, Alex told her “Calm down!” No doubt the same expression had in the past been aimed at Alex’s own excitable self. Other famous cases include Koko, the sign-language gorilla spontaneously combining the signs for “white” and “tiger” upon seeing a zebra, and Washoe, the chimpanzee pioneer of this entire field, labeling a swan a “water bird.”
