Mind your language
MY husband pointed out to me the other day how journalists on the televi- sion or wireless or in newspapers are retaining the names by which they were known in the nursery. There is someone on the wireless called Jonty Bloom; in the Independent on Sunday there is a whole crop of them: Suzi Feay, Sophie Goodchild, Ros Wynne-Jones and Jojo Moyes. I'm not sure if Jojo is a little boy or a little girl. No matter.
We are taught early in life not to laugh at people's names, and this is pre- cisely because they are often funny. They are even funnier in lists, as Geof- frey Madan demonstrated in his Note- books, with some surnames he had come across: Trampleasure, Leather- barrow, Ballhatchet, Walleousins, Brownbea, Polyblank, Buttolph and Bullwinkle. He also lists the pleasing combinations Archer Hind, Tom Sibby, Arthur Spenser Loat Farquharson and Teakle Wallis Warfield.
H.L. Mencken in his book The Ameri- can Language regards the search for new and unusual names as part of the nation- al character. Naturally the vegetable world is raided for girls' names: Catalpa, Syringia, Wistaria and even Eschscholtzia were recorded among Cal- ifornian names before the second world war. Or names might be entirely made up; in Iowa the following names were among those reported: Orba, Bashire, Arazeta, Burtyce, Chalene, Coliee, Glenice, Glenola, Icel, Mirnada, Retha, Twila, Verlie, Vella, Vista and Vola.
Combinations of given name and sur- name among those recorded by Menck- en have an agreeable variation of tone: Slaughter Bugg, Lingo D. Graham, Lemon Mitchell, Gentle Judge McEach- ern, Nazro Barefoot, Earthly Gaskin, Magazine Shaw, Lutheran Liggon, Savannah Satan, Fate Cutts and Mis- souri Soup. Children born within reach of the mischievous medical students of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore were 111 danger of being landed with ludicrous physiological or pathological names such as Placenta or Gonadia. One child was named unwittingly in honour of Paul August Wassermann (1866-1925), the inventor of a test for syphilis, and so ended up going through life with the almost Puritan-sounding name of Posi- tive Wassermann Johnson. That would make a byline to stand out in the news- papers.
Dot Wordsworth
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