22 January 2010

What's Your Name?

Greetings,

I received an interesting email from 7 last week.

"7 what?" you ask.

I'll get to that in a moment, but first a couple of observations about people ...

I happened to be flipping through one of those ubiquitous women's magazines while waiting for some person or other to deign to serve me, when I happened upon yet another article about Our Nic and Our Keith and their little girl, Sunday Rose, and it got me thinking about the days of the week as names, and why some days are popular and others don't rate a mention.

F'r instance, we have the aforementioned Sunday Rose Urban; those of us who can remember the 60s will recall Tuesday Weld; those who landed on Earth a little later will be familiar with Wednesday from the Addams Family (so named because she was "full of woe" as is Wednesday's child). Then we all know Robinson Crusoe's mate, Man Friday, but have you ever come across a person or character called Saturday or Thursday, and if not, why not?

And we come across a similar mystery regarding the months -- April, May and June are all popular girls' names; we can stretch it a bit and say that July (Julie) is a common name, as is Auguste (for a boy), but where are the Februaries, the Septembers and the Decembers?

Hmmm?

And that, dear reader, brings us neatly back to my opening comment about my email from 7, because 7 is, in fact, one of our Merry Band, whose legal name is the numeral 7 (not the word "Seven").

And thereby, as you can well imagine, hangs a tale, which 7 has kindly agreed to share with us ... I'll let him tell it, since he tells it so well:

My name is 7 Bates. Yes, the number 7.

I'm the only person living in the US with a numeral for a name. In the 80's a gentleman in San Diego wanted to change his name to a string of binary numbers, allegedly to be the first person in the phone book. It was struck down by the California courts and went all the way to the US Supreme Court in 1982. There, they decided that it would cause havoc if people were allowed to have numerals for names - so they outlawed it.

Fortunately, I was born in 1978 so the law doesn't apply to me.

Growing up, math class was brutal. If you dozed off in class and someone called out the number 7, you would be caught not paying attention by saying "here".

As a very young kid, I was fascinated by numbers that were multiples or divisors of 7. I collected things that came in sets of 7, or had 7s on them. As a child, I remember teachers sending me to the principal's office for signing my name as the numeral 7. It took a visit from my father, with my birth certificate, to get me out of that one.

My parents told me for years that the number was actually biblical in origins, citing the historical numerology patterns in the bible and the origin stories. You know, creation of the world in 7 days, etc. It's listed as the perfect number in the bible, and it means "completion" in numerological circles. Eventually though, I began to get hints that there was something else underneath this that led to the origin of the name.

My father, who can not hold his liquor to save his life, was unexpectedly inebriated one afternoon after a golf game where his friends gave him Scotch. I jumped on the rare opportunity and asked about my name. As we were talking, he shared with me that he got the idea while serving in the Army during the Vietnam war. You see, my father was a linguist, specifically an expert on southeast Asian dialects like Vietnamese, Laotian, etc. His time in the military was spent in intelligence and he lived among the people of Laos.

Apparently it's quite common in Laotian and Vietnamese culture for agrarian families to have between 10-20 children. They all work on farms together, so large families are useful and considered a sign of wealth. The first born is called by his or her given name, but the tradition of calling each successive child a nickname of their birth number, is quite prevalent. This means that the second born is called "two" (pronounced: song), the third born is called "three" (pronounced: see) and so on.

The seventh born is called "seven" (pronounced: jet) and is considered to be lucky. There is an obsession with lucky numbers in Asia, particularly 7, 8, and 9. The unluckiest number is 4, which, if you're the 4th born, is considered horrible.

These obsessions with numerology intrigued my father a great deal, especially in the realms of their social connotations. Specifically, how they treat "lucky" numbered people. A 7th born person is considered to be lucky, successful, and will do well in life. Meanwhile a 4th born is considered to have the opposite fate. This creates in their society however, a "chicken and the egg" complex. Which came first? The 7th or 4th born person's luck, or the fact that everyone treats a 7 like he's going to be successful and every 4 like they're doomed?

My father said he felt like the military industrial complex treated him like a number and not a name. In some corner of his mind, he decided that when he got back to the States and had a kid, he was gonna "beat Uncle Sam" to it and name his kid a number first. He decided 7 was the best number for a boy, and since it was lucky in America too, he'd go for it.

Problem was, it took him 6 kids and 2 wives to convince someone to name one of his kids 7. I'm the 6th born out of all my siblings (8 in all) which seems even more unusual considering the idea that it's supposed to be a 7th born thing, but I digress. My mother agreed to the naming of 7, partially because of my father's story, partially because as a devout Christian, she considered 7 to be a great number, and partially because my father threatened to name me Armshwad while she was in the hospital bed, if she didn't agree.

I'm not kidding.

So, you can blame numerology, religion, and slight coercion for my name. Interestingly, my father added the numeral 7 to my birth certificate, as opposed to the spelled version. This was all fine until I wanted to obtain a driver's license. When I went to the DMV, I was told that the numeral 7 would not work on a license, because the computers used by the DMV ran on a cobalt-based computer language - and thus, had pre-determined numerical and alpha fields for data entry. In other words, they couldn't type a numeral where the "NAME" field was, because it would only take letters.

I petitioned the state, but was denied. The DMV suggested I use my middle name, Todd, but if you met me, you would understand that I am NOT a Todd. I'm 7. So, I settled for adding Seven, as a second middle name. Thus, my full name is 7 Seven Todd Bates.

(I know, it gets stranger by the minute)

Legally, I can sign my name as the numeral, but for the purposes of keeping people from getting too confused, I tend to spell it out when I register for things or say, subscribe to a magazine. This has its advantages and disadvantages. Unfortunately, people see the name Seven spelled out and they assume it's "Steven" with the 't' missing. Even worse, a LOT of people don't even notice that they misread the name, and just say "Steven". After all, why would they assume someone's name was a number?

If, when I fill out a form and I use the numeral, people see the number 7 and assume it's the letter T. So I get a lot of stuff sent to "Mr. T,"  which is funny. I should wear more gold necklaces, I assume. Either way, I'm drawn to people who have the guts to actually say my name correctly when they read it on a form. Even more so by people who don't blink at it, or ask for an explanation.

And yes, typically every person I meet, I have to explain the name to. They're just shocked, but obviously I can't share this long story, so I just boil it down to a common factor: my parents were hippies.

This single fact tends to be enough for people to accept my numerical name!

Isn't that a great story?

Makes the rest of us with our Tom, Dick and Harry-type names feel very ordinary.

Are you one of those people who's gone through life trying to explain why you're called by your name? Have you given your children names that are unusual?

If so, drop by the Write101 blog and tell us all the gory details.

You may recall that we've furrowed our brows over names in the past. 

And also looked at Numbers as Names (but only for characters in books).

So this week's Little Something Extra has some advice on what to name your characters (and perhaps, what not to name your children!)

Thinking about publications ... I think I've mentioned before that there are three widely sold women's magazines out here: Woman's Day (which comes out weekly), Women's Weekly (which comes out monthly), and the New Idea (which has never had one in its entire existence!)

Just saying ...

And speaking of names, one thing that all names have in common (except numerals) is that they all must begin with a capital letter ... Here's a little refresher:

Capital letters are used to tell us that a new thought has started (the beginning of a sentence) or that something important is being discussed. So we use capital letters for all proper nouns (names of people, places, titles of books, films, ships, houses etc, important events and special times).

Note that you don't use capitals for the seasons of the year, nor with points of the compass (except where abbreviations are used). So it's:

However, you DO use capitals for directions when you're referring to the name of a region:

A capital letter also occurs to mark the first word of direct speech:

If you tend to wax lyrical about life in general, and are wont to exclaim, "O, the glory of toast and Vegemite is food for the soul!" and, "I love a spring morning, but O nothing compares to an open fire in winter!" etc, then you always use a capital letter for "O".

So no excuses for forgetting when to use a capital!

While they listened to the dulcet strains of Wayne Newton, quaffed champagne, cuddled in the hot tub as bubbles nibbled at their shoulders like a peckish Pomeranian, Tiffany and Shane grew lethargic and groggy; and as Shane drew a final, sweet drag from his cigarette, an errant breeze hijacked an ember - only to release it into the slumbering Tiffany's mane; but Shane, besotted and inherently doltish, could muster no plan of rescue until he heard Wayne Newton intone, "Dunk her, Shane." (Bulwer-Lytton Vile Puns contest)

This week's quiz:

Match each definition with a word from the list: 

quiescent, misanthrope, recreancy, epitome, erudite, saturnine, misogynist, abeyance, squalid, diaphanous

1. learned, scholarly

2. gloomy, dark, sullen, morose

3. suspended action

4. transparent, gauzy

5. representative, a summary or abstract, a typical example

6. foul, filthy

7. at rest, dormant, torpid

8. cowardice, a cowardly giving up

9.one who hates mankind

10.one who hates women/females

This shows the importance of good diction... or not:

A Chihuahua, a Doberman and a Bulldog are in a bar having a drink when a great-looking female Collie comes up to them and says, "Whoever can say 'liver' and 'cheese' in a sentence can have me."

So the Doberman says, "I love liver and cheese."

The Collie replies, "That's not good enough."

The Bulldog says, "I hate liver and cheese."

She says, "That's not creative enough."

Finally, the Chihuahua says, "Liver alone . . . cheese mine."

Map of the World

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If you've received this little missive from a friend, you can get your very own issue, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed every Friday morning by clicking here: mailto:WritingTips-subscribe@yahoogrups.com And I'm even prepared to offer a shameless bribe.

Last week's quiz:

Match each word below with its synonym from the list:

A Little Something Extra

What to name your characters (and names to avoid). 

And if you're wondering about the nursery rhyme for children born on different days of the week ...

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day
Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.

That expression, "thereby hangs a tale" is a tad on the weird side when you stop and really think about it, but as is so often the case with popular idioms, we don't have to look far for the brilliant wit who first coined it ... none other than our second-best friend, Shakespeare!

From Shakespeare's As You Like It, 1599.

JAQUES:
A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' the forest,
A motley fool; a miserable world!
As I do live by food, I met a fool
Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun,
And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms and yet a motley fool.
'Good morrow, fool,' quoth I. 'No, sir,' quoth he,
'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune:'
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock:
Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags:
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools should be so deep-contemplative,
And I did laugh sans intermission
An hour by his dial. O noble fool!
A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear.

Oxymoron of the week: Anarchy rules!

Word of the week: Rhopalic (adj) A sentence or a line of poetry in which each word contains one letter or one syllable more than the previous word; a type of word play

It comes from the Greek rhopalos meaning 'a club, tapered cudgel.'

Here's a well-known example: "I do not know where family doctors acquired illegibly perplexing handwriting; nevertheless, extraordinary pharmaceutical intellectuality, counterbalancing indecipherability, transcendentalizes intercommunications' incomprehensibleness." (Dmitri Borgmann, Language on Vacation: An Olio of Orthographical Oddities. Scribner, 1965)

Rhopalic sentences can also decrease the word length, as is shown in this example:

Scrabble Tourney Ruined! Final Game Has No ‘X.’ (Source)

And a Latin phrase that many of us can relate to ...

Cacoethes scribendi

[kah-KOH-tays skree-BAYN-dee]

(An insatiable urge to write)

Did you know that you can have your very own Latin reminders? How about undies proclaiming, Bene est rex esse? (It's good to be king) Or a shopping bag that warns, Emptrix nata sum (Born to shop)? Click here for these and more: http://www.cafepress.com/write101 

Recommend this page to other writers by clicking the Recommend it! button below, then see what pages others are recommending here.

Kind regards,

Jennifer

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