Re: OT: Stillbirth, naming stuff (Was Re: What? the clean-shaven outnumber the bearded?...)

Mia Soderquist wrote:

>My husband's computer is Marvin.
>
Named after Marvin the Martian (Warner Bros.), Marvin the Paranoid
Android (Hitchikers' Guide), or some other, less interesting, Marvin? :)
(I hope you know the third answer isn't acceptible.

>I wonder how other people divide up 'nameable' and
>'unnameable' things.
>
If it needs a name, I'd give it one. If I had one cat,[1] I probably
wouldn't name it because 'my cat' (or 'Tristan's cat') would be
unambiguous enough. If I had a child, I'd name it, because calling it
'Tristan's child' implies a possession I clearly don't have over the
child. A stillborn child would probably be nameless to me, unless I (or,
rather, my hypothetical partner(s)) had more than one of them, and even
then, numbers were invented for a reason :)

[1] cats > dogs :P

My computers have names, but only because isidore[2] and casoar look
better than 192.168.0.3 and 192.168.0.5. When talking about them to
people, I call them 'my computer' or 'the family's computer'.

[2]: Named after the Isidore from _Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheep?_, I believe.

We have two chooks (=chickens, hens) and two cats. The cats I refer to
by their names unless I can get away unambiguously with a pronoun (one
being male/neutered (Bruno) and the other female/neutered (Muffin));
they're very different. Muffin sits around all day and patiently waits
for someone to let her out but will let you know in no uncertain terms
when she wants to be fed. Bruno bounces around all day and squeaks[3]
when he wants to be let in/out/fed. I don't use the chooks' names. In
fact, I don't even know what they are (they have them though). As far as
I'm concerned, one chook is pretty much interchangeable with the other,
so I wouldn't be bothered naming them.

[3]: Bruno was found stray in early February either last year or the
year before. He was at that stage slightly younger than you'd normally
take them away from their mother (I think). The theory is that some kids
got him for a christmas present, and when the holidays ended (second
weekday after 26 January, being Australia Day), they decided they
couldn't keep him and left him for the elements. He never fully
recovered, or learnt how to meow, it seems.

--
Tristan                  <kesuari@...>

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