As a kid I remember overhearing talk of how, many years before, one of my uncles had gone out to live in “the sticks”.

I’d never heard the expression before, but… somehow it made sense. It was a turn of phrase that you immediately understood. I associate it with obscurity, personally. Rural areas. Or further still, to dirt roads and yellow-green meadows.

He spoke differently when he came back, they said. My uncle, that is.

I’m fascinated by such things. Our brains are such crazy, wild things, and they ABSORB far more than they output.

Not just language, but art. Scenery. Smells. Sounds. Other ‘s’ words too.

That process, that absorption, is significant.

It shapes you.