Just this week, a friend of mine took his three-and-half-year-old grandson hiking through
a local terraced cemetery. As they climbed, they stopped to read a gravestone
together at every level. Recognizing the shape of the recurring word forms, the
little boy soon began to repeat phrases like “In loving memory” and “beloved
wife”.
When the two returned home to tell Grandma what they had been up to, her agitated
response was, “I hope you didn’t tell him what the numbers mean.”
Yeah, those numbers …