| 摘 要： | Recently I was reminded of a story which my mother swears is trus (though she doesn't call me Bobby muchanymore):Back in 1958,when I was just past four years old,my parents gave me a young parakeet.My mother determinedthat our parakeet would learn to talk,and to this end sat at the microphone of a borrowed tape recorder for a full 1/2hour,saying over and over again:“Pretty bird!Pretty bird!Pretty bird!Pretty bird!...”and so on.The resultingtaped message was played for our parakeet at least once per day.For weeks.One of Mom's friends often dropped by for an early morning cup of coffee,and was well aware (due to the in-cessant taped message) of her attempts to teach our bird to talk.And one day,while the friend was at the kitchentable,the bird began to speak,but very quietly and indistinctly.She excitedly called my mother into the room,andtold her that the bird was trying to say something.The two women carefully leaned toward the parakeet's cage,andheard him say,very clearly now-“Bobby!Stop that!”
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