1. My eight-year-old has correctly noted that if "sheep" is going to insist on being a plural noun, the singular ought to be "shoop". In which case there's a Salt-n-Pepa single that needs a dramatically overhauled video.
(My Facebook friend David said "I can't wait for the sequel where they teach you about chromosomes so you can clone your own shoop. 'Let's Talk About X', they'll call it". At which point I point out to the jury that
it's *his* fault I penned its opening lyric: "Let's talk about clones for now/ for the farmers in their labs while their robot plows". In a future hit, we assume, Salt would "Wanna take a minute or two/ to give the injections due/ to the sheep that gave the genes to my whole herd".)
2. Last night my eight-year-old conducted a conversation with me entirely based on "What's your favorite shade of {color}?" His answers were earnest and thoughtful: to my "turquoise" he chose "aquamarine", to my "deep forest green" he rebutted with "emerald" (excellent choice! I was forgetting the gemstone collection at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History), and his favorite shade of orange is "a half-and-half mix of scarlet and bright sunshine yellow".
In some ways it felt like a very strange discussion. In others, it seemed little different from conversations about "What's your favorite R.E.M. song?" (or in my friendship circle "What's the Red Hot Chili Peppers song you can stand?", with the implication that "Breaking the Girl" plus "By the Way" plus "Californication" is too many nominees), and those, as you likely assumed, feel normal. You could argue that it's different: music has artistic intent. But so do paint samples and unnaturally-hued stuffed animals, and the latter take up even more space in my house than songs do, by now.
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