In total there are 59 users online :: 0 registered, 0 hidden and 59 guests (based on users active over the past 60 minutes) Most users ever online was 871 on Fri Apr 19, 2024 12:00 am
I thought you might enjoy this short article on the subject of surnames which appeared in yesterdays newspaper:-
Yesterday came the sad news that our rudest and most embarrassing names are dying out. Cue a smorgasbord of terrible puns pairing the words "shrinking", "dropping" and "falling" with the surnames "Cock", "Balls" and "Bottom". When Professor Richard Webber of King's College London compared the names of the population in 2008 with the census of 1881, he wasn't deliberately looking for Shufflebottoms, Nutters and Piggs. But perhaps unsurprisingly, he found that they are among the most endangered surnames in the country.
Webber's study revealed that 75% of the Cock family have rebranded themselves over the last 120 years, while Willys, Hustlers and Jellys have also fallen dramatically. Men have taken their wives' names and both sexes have changed their names by deed poll, in a bid to rid themselves and their children of the embarrassing family burden.
The sad irony is that Cocks, Dafts and Longbottoms were once able to flaunt their names with pride. Cock latterly denoted cockerel-like pride, Daft meant you were just a little meek and the Longbottoms just lived in a valley with a long bottom. It's misfortune that these names have since taken on cruder meanings.
Meanwhile no one bats an eyelid at surnames that were once deliberately insulting. According to Michael Adams, professor of linguistics at Indiana University, a Nott's ancestors were noted for their baldness, a Barrett was considered a liar, and the first Shakespeares were probably men who had been caught masturbating.
Shakespeare isn't the only genius to have overcome an embarrassing moniker. Mozart's surname is derived from the Early New High German word "moz", meaning a sheep or an idiot, a slur his family tried to disguise with the warrior suffix "hart". And today we have footballer Nicky Butt, actor Alan Cumming and children's secretary Ed Balls, all of whom have made the most of life with an embarrassing name. So perhaps the Glasscocks and Newdicks of the world should be less eager to spare their children's blushes. After all, they're robbing them of a rich and noble history. And that very embarrassment just might spur them on to greatness.
Only those become weary of angling who bring nothing to it but the idea of catching fish.
He was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad....
Penelope wrote:Tom, I loved that snippet of conversation with your mother. I could just picture you, both being a trifle pedantic? It was lovely!!!
And a true report of of an actual conversation. Naturally, I then had the pleasure of referring to the birds flatfoot jumping in the yard for the rest of her life. And my mother's quibbling was nothing compared to her sisters'. Christmas at my aunt's consisted of us sitting in silence in her den and nobody saying anything because the rest would take exception to it. Two of my cousins became successful lawyers, however.
I can't believe that Cardinal - Wow!!! I thought you just made it up and that it was some kind of 'Walt Disney' cartoon bird.
Mr. Pessimistic is a character I created one day. I wanted to start a political comic strip and was thinking of character types. I came up with Mr. P. first, then had his supporting cast of Missy Blissy, Mr. Optimisitc, Mr. Realistic...
It got to be too much of course, so they only showed up when needed. Since then, I used Mr. P. as my online alias. I was hoping to post around and get him known and thus promote my website, mrpessimistic.com. The site is still up, but it was last updated in 2005 I think...it is there just because now.
Mr. P. is now just my persona online for posting on groups I belong to...and now Booktalk is one of the last I still post to!
Peggy is a derivative of Margaret which means "precious pearl" and Butler is just easy to remember because I am not the maid But in all honesty my book talk name is just my name. Like Bruce Willis said in Pulp Fiction "This is America, our names don't mean Sh##"
Frank is my actual name but has several interesting meanings
1) a member of a Germanic people who lived along the Rhine valley and spread westward during the decline of the Roman Empire in the 4th century ad. They conquered vast areas of western Europe, taking over Gaul and becoming the dominant people in an area covering much of present-day western Germany.
2) open, honest, and sometimes forceful in expressing true feelings and opinions
3) having or showing an appealingly open and honest nature
4) to print an official mark over the stamp on a letter or package to show that payment has been formally accepted
5) the right to have mailed items delivered free of charge
6) the main unit of currency in several French-speaking countries… although spelled differently “Franc”.
013 is my lucky number… I was born on Friday the 13th as was my father.
Later
That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
I chose the name GentleReader9 for several reasons.
In early novels, some authors address the reader directly and imploringly as "Gentle Reader," as if asking for understanding or mentally creating a reader who does understand, expressing indirectly (by the way they are speaking to them) who that person would be. I always like to try imaginatively occupying the identity of that ideal Gentle Reader to whom all written self-expression is privately addressed. I want to understand and to address others in as elegant and expressive a way as is articulated in that narrative structure. In our deepest understanding hearts, GentleReader is who we all are. I want to identify with that part of me.
I chose "9" because I thought there would be other people who had already chosen GentleReader (it seemed obvious to me, somehow) and 9 is a sacred number in the way I think of numbers. It has the inner balance of three 3's and makes a kind of cosmic completeness before the first two digit number, 10. It is secretly the tenth number because of zero which comes even before 1. It is alpha and omega and I associate it with the divine, also the number of months in a pregnancy. I love 9. I also love 6, but that's another story.
I didn't want to put my real first name because it's sufficiently unusual where I live (I think there is one other person with it in town) that it would totally identify me in a public way I don't like. I wanted to feel free to speak with my full voice and open heart and not suddenly be surprised by someone who knew something about me whom I hadn't meant to tell. I also have a job that can be dangerous sometimes and it makes me careful, sometimes paranoid about my anonymity. I also don't want to compromise other people's confidentiality or reputation by mistake when I talk about my life. Does Thomas' mother want to be widely thought picky and pedantic around the world? That's none of my business, and I don't think less of her or of Thomas for a good story, but I hope everyone knows that the people we talk about to tell our stories are much bigger and more complete and wonderful than their characters in our stories are.
Anyway, it surely can't hurt: my real name is Shanta, which means "Peaceful One." I've always liked it but I have never liked the feeling of more people looking at me than I can look back at. I like being wrapped up snug and safe. This may be a learned family thing that somehow came to America from India and is still in my bones: being seen isn't safe for women. Being "heard" and understood spiritually, from inside out, in silence is better.
"Where can I find a man who has forgotten the words so that I can talk with him?"
-- Chuang-Tzu (c. 200 B.C.E.)
as quoted by Robert A. Burton
