116: What is a Bank

Above is this week’s question.  I’ve not yet managed to work out what the thing is that human beans call a bank.  I know that:

(a) they are something to do with money (but that doesn’t really help since I’m not sure what money is).

(b) they are something to do with rivers (and I do know what they are).

(c) they are on holiday this weekend.

Is it a large family?  “The Banks are going to France this weekend.”

A large family that lives on a boat?  “The Banks died when the boat turned over when the river flooded”

If my beans were really dog-sensitive, they would get a dog-oriented dictionary and thesaurus, so I could research these topics for myself.  As it is, I have to rely on snatches of human conversation, either live or on the TV.

Wait a minute. I’ve just heard on the radio that The Banks’ holiday is a special one to celebrate the julibee of The Queen - whatever that is.

English is a complex language.  We dogs get by with about 27 basic sounds, some of which can convey quite sophisticated meanings.  Humans have thousands.

No wonder it takes them 18 years to grow up.  It must take them that long to learn all the words in the dictionary.  After that, of course, most of them seem to only use about 27 of them. 

They could save a lot of time by simplifying things officially like we dogs have done.