Sphinx

Sphinx / Library of Congress

After brain injury, some patients have aphasia, a general term for loss of language. Some cases are intriguing. There are patients who speak excellently but blank only on words for body parts. Or animals. Or man-made tools. There was one patient who spoke fluently but had trouble only identifying fruits and vegetables. He had no problems with complicated words and their meanings like “abacus” and “Sphinx,” but for the life of him couldn’t identify “peach” or “orange.”

The mind is strange when it gets injured.