  Another step of the same kind is what Quine calls eternal predications, subject-predicate sentences true or false once for all, such as “Fido is a dog”. Assuming the child has learnt each term as an observation sentence, the sight of the dog will dispose him to assent to each. Quine speculates that the sound of the word “Fido” may have something of the same effect as the sight of the beast, inclining our learner to assent to “Dog” and thus to “Fido is a dog”. It is notable that there is a sort of use-mention confusion operating here, if Quine’s suggestion is correct. Language is learnt by confusion and “short leaps of analogy” rather than by “continuous derivation” (1975b, 77f.); indeed a holistic language cannot be learnt without such leaps.