Re: CHAT: weird names, was Re: conlanging, the ultimate feminist subversion

At 08:24 -0500 3.8.1999, J. Barefoot wrote:

>Thank you. I suppose it is an adjective,
In Icelandic it is, beyond any doubt.  My dictionary says so... ;-)

>but maybe that's a perk of not having gender - you can't tell gender for
>sure, but you don't have to nit-pick.
Yeah. My Swedish dialect does, unlike that of Stockholm but like Standard
Swedish, use a special adjectival form for naturally masculine referents.
It throws me into immediate nit-pick mode to hear them use what for them is
a gender-neutral form.

>It is also just my name. Yes, my real name, Barefoot, as in that's what's
>on my birth cerificate and Social Security card.
Real cool.  I like that.

> You would not believe how many people ask me to spell it. "Your name's
>what? Could you spell that?" "No, I won't. Didn't you pass third grade?"
I can, since I spell Jonsson the way I do...

> And if one more person says, "Well why are you wearing shoes?" and laughs
>hysterically, like they're the first one to come up with that, I honestly
>don't know what I'll do to them, but it will be very not-nice!
Well, you can always ask if *they* share their surname with a Viking king,
or say as I do when my daughters go overboard about their mom walking
around naked in the house after showering: everybody is naked under the
clothes.

Actually in your place I would say: "So that I can kick your stupid ass
harder!"

>On the upside, it's easy to traslate into my conlangs. My name in Asiteya:
>Ataiyu Yakoahu Peniya
I like that too.  Since my name (Philip) is "friend of horse" in Greek I
usually translate it easily.  As you can see in my sig I even use the
Sindarin form as a mail address.

BTW the Quenya for "Barefoot", _Heldatal_ would incidentally be
gender-neutral, since the word for "foot" ends in a consonant.  _Heldal_ in
Sindarin.  But I'm forgetting that not everybody is a Tolkien-language
buff...

>Jennifer


/BP

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  B.Philip Jonsson  <bpj@...> <melroch@...>

        Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
                                            (Tacitus)