January 22, 2007

Read My Column; I Call It George

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my new iPod, and in the process I invited readers to help me come up with a name for the cute little rascal. Well, I got a number of suggestions, including the idea of using an unpronounceable symbol, sort of like The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, Then That Stupid Symbol, And Now Known As Prince Again For The Benefit Of The Eleven People Who Still Give A Rip. And the winner is;

iBall.

This name was first submitted by EB of Somewhere In North America, and independently a few days later by Dawn M. of Somewhere Else In North America. Runners-up include iMike, iPathetic (which really would refer more to me than my iPod), and, in an apparent homage to either Bart Simpson or Ricky Ricardo, iCarumba. The winners will each receive a trip, at their own expense, to anywhere they feel like going. And my undying gratitude.

In the same column, I also made a comment about naming inanimate objects like cars, boats, guitars, kitchen appliances or body parts.

(Depending on your relationship with me, you can feel free to insert your own jokes regarding inanimate body parts here.)

Done? All right then. Anyway, my comment was that with a few exceptions, I don’t do it. Those exceptions are my gas grills, the late Carl and his successor, The Enterprise. And now, of course, my new bosom companion, iBall. This remark triggered a flood of concern from people who felt that I was missing an essential part of the human experience if I didn’t go ahead and call my lawn mower Kevin.

This got me wondering why we name things in the first place.  OK, I know why we name our kids and animals. We do it so we have a way to constantly demonstrate how completely parenthood has scrambled our brains. In my son’s entire life I don’t think I’ve ever said his name without first cycling through all my other relatives, every pet I’ve ever owned, and the starting lineup of the 1984 Detroit Tigers. At least the infield. 

And it makes sense that we, at some point in our evolutionary past, came up with the generic names we use for the things around us. It is arguably a lot more efficient to say, “Please hand me that salad fork,” than it is to gesture in the general direction of the salad fork and say, “Ngyuuuuhhh!” I know, because I’ve tried it both ways.

The question is why some folks feel obliged to go the extra mile and call the salad fork Peetie. 

A friend sent me this observation; “I believe we name things because without the manifestation of word as reality (i.e., the Greek ‘Logos’), there would be no reality as we perceive it.”  

I’m not real sure, but I think this means that if somebody, somewhere doesn’t go ahead and call that salad fork Peetie, the physical universe will cease to exist. This particular friend is really smart, so what she says is probably true. I’m just glad that there are people around who are willing to pick up the slack with little Peetie and all the other salad forks, and in so doing keep our cosmos clicking along. 

I think Jean-Paul Sartre, the great French novelist and existentialist philosopher, described this idea best when he said, “Je ne sais quoi. Voulez vous couscous?” From what I can recall of my high school French this translates as, “Beats the heck out of me. Do you want to have lunch?”

As for me, in the absence of the sort of intense emotional relationship that I have developed with my iPod and my gas grill, I’ll just go on calling the objects around me “the car” or “those bricks” or “that handful of salted peanuts.” 

Just call me Slacker.

Copyright © 2007, Michael Ball

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