We give names to almost everything we see, hear, touch and feel. We also change them into what we call Pet Names, why, I really don’t know.
Perhaps it is our nature to label things. Maybe it gives colour to the object or person, or perhaps a code word known only to a select few.
Nicknames were popular in my youth, especially in the circle of my ‘boyfriends’, I mean playmates not potential lovers. I was known as a tomboy but as far as I recall the lads didn’t have a nickname for me. Not that I know – anyway.
In Wales, instead of numbers, our home had a name along with most of the old houses; the children at the village school were referred to by their first name followed by that of their house. It made things less confusing when most surnames were Jones, Williams or Roberts.
Giving objects a name makes them special and as technology is expanding so is our awareness of ultra modern gadgets, with new names to go with them. Yet unlike dead skin, we don’t shed off the old to make way for new, but live in a mish-mash of words. Eventually, the old fade away and are only kept warmish by the theatre with say Shakespeare, or those who study ancient scriptures. Yet now and then old names appear on school registers, like Abel and Seth are popular again, and Adam of course, goes on forever.
(c) 2024 Pat Barnett.
