Who Needs Nouns, Anyway?

One thing about having to quit my job to be on bedrest is that I am free to read whatever I want. No more scrambling to stay a day or two ahead of my students. I can read, or not read, or half-heartedly read, completely according to my fancy. When you have to lie down all day and are only allowed on your feet for bathroom breaks, I think you're forced to appreciate some of these small benefits.

Right now I'm reading through That Hideous Strength, the 3rd part of C.S. Lewis' science fiction trilogy. Rather than write a book report on it, I thought I'd share a little snippet which, although entirely unrelated to the plot itself, I found quite amusing:

"The cardinal difficulty," said Macphee, "in collaboration
between the sexes is that women speak a language without nouns. If two men are
doing a bit of work, one will say to the other, 'Put this bowl inside the bigger
bowl which you'll find on the top shelf of the green cupboard.' The female for
this is, 'Put that in the other one in there.' And then if you ask them, 'in
where?' they say, 'in there, of course.' There is consequently a phatic
hiatus." He pronounced this so as to rhyme with "get at
us."

"There's your tea now," said Ivy Maggs, "and I'll go and get
you a piece of cake, which is more than you deserve. And when you've had it you
can go upstairs and talk about nouns for the rest of the evening."

"Not about nouns: by means of nouns, "said MacPhee, but Mrs. Maggs had already left the room.

Lewis is awesome.