{"id":149640,"date":"2020-12-22T11:00:04","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T16:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=149640"},"modified":"2020-12-11T16:47:54","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T21:47:54","slug":"the-eleventh-word-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/22\/the-eleventh-word-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Eleventh Word"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>We\u2019re away until January 4, but we\u2019re reposting some of our favorite pieces from 2020. Enjoy your holiday!<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/adobestock_184256058.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-148094\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/adobestock_184256058-1024x637.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"637\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/adobestock_184256058-1024x637.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/adobestock_184256058-300x187.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/adobestock_184256058-768x478.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The sky was a slate of electric indigo. We were sitting in the bath, my year-and-a-half-old son and I. My wife popped her head in the door. He looked at her, giving her a smile I will never get, and then pointed to the painting of a magenta fish on the wall.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSheesh,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFish?\u201d She said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSheesh!\u201d He said.<\/p>\n<p>It was, perhaps, his eleventh word. He had <em>dog<\/em> and <em>ball<\/em> and <em>duck<\/em> and <em>bubble<\/em> and <em>mama<\/em> and (mysteriously in our lesbian household) <em>dada<\/em> and <em>nana<\/em> (for banana) and <em>vroom vroom<\/em> (for cars) and <em>hah-hah<\/em> (for hot) and (the root of so many of our evils) <em>what\u2019s dat?<\/em> <em>What\u2019s dat?<\/em> <em>What\u2019s dat<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>And then, there it was: <em>fish<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/10\/05\/the-eleventh-word\/\">Read more &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Uncertainty, it has been shown, is more painful than certain physical pain. For some reason, the neurologists say, we are wired to fear the unknown. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2059,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68282],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-2020"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Eleventh Word by Lulu Miller<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Uncertainty, it has been shown, is more painful than certain physical pain. For some reason, the neurologists say, we are wired to fear the unknown.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/22\/the-eleventh-word-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Eleventh Word by Lulu Miller\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 22, 2020 \u2013 Uncertainty, it has been shown, is more painful than certain physical pain. For some reason, the neurologists say, we are wired to fear the unknown.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/22\/the-eleventh-word-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-12-22T16:00:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/adobestock_184256058.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2984\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1856\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lulu Miller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lulu Miller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/22\/the-eleventh-word-2\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/22\/the-eleventh-word-2\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Lulu Miller\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/b7837673a5a7d7b5ff742747871be73f\"},\"headline\":\"The Eleventh Word\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-12-22T16:00:04+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/22\/the-eleventh-word-2\/\"},\"wordCount\":147,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/22\/the-eleventh-word-2\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/adobestock_184256058-1024x637.jpeg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Best of 2020\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/22\/the-eleventh-word-2\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/22\/the-eleventh-word-2\/\",\"name\":\"The Eleventh Word by Lulu Miller\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/22\/the-eleventh-word-2\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/22\/the-eleventh-word-2\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/adobestock_184256058-1024x637.jpeg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-12-22T16:00:04+00:00\",\"description\":\"Uncertainty, it has been shown, is more painful than certain physical pain. 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