Three years and four months old Chloe seems linguistically advanced for her age. The expressions and sentences she sometimes comes out with are a constant surprise. But maybe she’s just demonstrating how rapid the development of language skills is and at how early an age this occurs.

I’ve recently introduced her to the hyperbolic expressions “I could eat a horse” and “It’s raining cats and dogs”. She dismisses them out of hand. “Nooo, don’t be silly, grandad!” she responds. I’ve explained when one uses them (“I’m really, really hungry” and “It’s raining really heavily”) but she persists in taking them at face value and dismissing them as preposterous. I’m going to persevere and I’m confident that before long she’ll use one of the expressions.