It's harder to study languages scientifically than it is to study chemicals, because so much of the evidence is shut away inside the brains/minds of human beings. Still, we can learn a lot from indirect evidence in the form of spoken and signed and written language.

No matter what ridiculousness befalls Our Heroes, you know that they're never going to be facing danger with hay fever, or realizing only too late that someone's finished the last box of cereal and forgotten to buy more.

I was holding / Black candles / And waiting / For a bus / That would never come

"Aleksander, if there's any trouble during the flight, kill Ms. Tal immediately."