While doing some reading for my Research Methods class, I came across this exercise on the efficiency of language (ie. having one word that signifies an entire concept) in my textbook:

"Imagine, for a moment, that you are driving along a country road. To your left you see something with the following characteristics:
~Black and white in colour, in a splotchy pattern;
~Covered with a short, bristly substance;
~Appended at one end by an object similar in appearance to a paintbrush;
~Appended at the other end by a lumpy thing with four pointy objects sticking upward (two soft and floppy, two hard and curved around);
~Held up from the ground by four spindly sticks, two at each end."

That's so easy, I thought. Obviously it's a skunk that's been run over and has all four of its legs sticking up in the air! It's black and white and has a tail and you see dead skunks near the road all the time at home!

Needless to say, I felt pretty dumb when I read the next sentence: "Unless you were born yesterday, you would almost certainly identify the object as a cow." Then I read the list to Liam and he guessed that the animal being described was a zebra, and I felt better.

Some days I wonder how I managed to get into graduate school....