Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Wording
One of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, with apologies to Bill Watterson for copyright violation:
I've always been a big fan of verbing. And nouning and adjectiving. In fact, just today one of my professors noted that "One of the horribles you can encounter in this situation is..." The word horrible got nouned. I love it. I find it quite clever to use a word in a situation it wasn't originally meant to be used in.
Change of subject. (Or is it?)
I'm not a fan of last names used as first names. You know, names like Jackson, Marshall, or Taylor. Don't get me wrong--I still love the people with such names. I am related to or have connections with wonderful people with names like Grant, Coleman, Tanner, Chase, and so forth. But I disagree with the naming philosophy.
This is a touchy point between me and my wife. When the day comes that we have a baby daughter, she is going to push* to name her Madison. Which is a last name (why is it that so many of the popular last-names-as-first-names are Presidential last names?). I don't want to name my kid a last name--she'll already have one (Astle--try THAT as a first name!). Yet if you go to the Social Security Administration's baby name site, you'll find that Madison has been one of the top three names for girls for the past four years available. Doesn't that establish that it is indeed a first name?
I mean, access got verbed because people used it as a verb. Now it's an acceptable verb. Words change due to their usage, and just like access got verbed, Madison has been first-named.
Still, that doesn't mean I have to like it. I mean, you name a kid Madison, and you'll call her "Maddie." But that sounds just like my name: Matty.
* Pun intended.
I've always been a big fan of verbing. And nouning and adjectiving. In fact, just today one of my professors noted that "One of the horribles you can encounter in this situation is..." The word horrible got nouned. I love it. I find it quite clever to use a word in a situation it wasn't originally meant to be used in.
Change of subject. (Or is it?)
I'm not a fan of last names used as first names. You know, names like Jackson, Marshall, or Taylor. Don't get me wrong--I still love the people with such names. I am related to or have connections with wonderful people with names like Grant, Coleman, Tanner, Chase, and so forth. But I disagree with the naming philosophy.
This is a touchy point between me and my wife. When the day comes that we have a baby daughter, she is going to push* to name her Madison. Which is a last name (why is it that so many of the popular last-names-as-first-names are Presidential last names?). I don't want to name my kid a last name--she'll already have one (Astle--try THAT as a first name!). Yet if you go to the Social Security Administration's baby name site, you'll find that Madison has been one of the top three names for girls for the past four years available. Doesn't that establish that it is indeed a first name?
I mean, access got verbed because people used it as a verb. Now it's an acceptable verb. Words change due to their usage, and just like access got verbed, Madison has been first-named.
Still, that doesn't mean I have to like it. I mean, you name a kid Madison, and you'll call her "Maddie." But that sounds just like my name: Matty.
* Pun intended.
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