The Death Of Language

(I’m seven or eight. I’m in a school bus taking children to the swimming pool. The bus stops at a traffic light, just next to a cemetery. I overhear two boys talking.)

Boy #1: “Hey, look! A giant chess board!”

Boy #2: “Wow!”

Me: “Actually, it’s a cemetery.”

Boy #1: “No. It’s a giant chess board. Isn’t it, [Boy’s Name]?”

Boy #2: “Yeah! Girls are silly. Cemetery? That word doesn’t even exist!”