Two hands washing in the basin: “Quote unquote.”

Stove dial clicking on: “Rick.”

Metal rug beater being hung up on a hook against the wooden wall of the basement stairs: “Carbohydrate.”

Man’s wet foot squeaking on the gas pedal: “Lisa!”

The different language sounds are created by these objects in the following way: hard consonants are created by hard objects striking hard surfaces. Vowels are created with hollow spaces, such as the inside of the butter tub whose lid and inner volume created the sounds of the word “horóscopy”—“horó” when the lid was coming off and “scopy” when the lid was put down on the counter. Some vowels, such as the e’s in “neglected,” spoken by the plates in the dishwater, are supplied by our brain to fill out what we hear as merely consonants: “nglctd.”

Either consonants function to punctuate or to stop vowel sounds; or vowels function to fill out or to color consonants.

Wooden-handled knife hitting counter: “Background.”

Plastic salad spinner being set down on counter: “Julie! Check it out!”

Lydia Davis, “The Language of Things in the House”, in Can’t and Won’t: Stories