"Upset" & other nomenological phenomena

Dennis R. Preston preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU
Wed Nov 20 16:19:08 UTC 2002


If that's what this is about, how about Dill L. Pickle, who worked
for Paramount Foods in Louisville, KY (in the famous old article by
Tom Pyles called 'Bible-belt onamastics,' as I recall). My favorite
Louisvillian was, however, the proctologist named Dr. Asman (from my
personal files).

dInIs










This discussion has drifted away from the true meaning of the
Shandy-Lack Theory.  Rather than names that have become ill-omened
because of shame incurred by a previous holder of the name, we should
be we should be discussing people who became baseball players because
they were named Poppup or linguists because they were named
Particple.  A few more positive examples of the Theory in action, and
it can be elevated to a Law, just as the example of Upset elevated it
from an Hypothesis to a Theory.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African
Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.

----- Original Message -----
From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
Date: Tuesday, November 19, 2002 7:43 pm
Subject: Re: "Upset" & other nomenological phenomena

>  >Biblical names are presumably fair game, but who names his son
>  "Goliath"?>Or "Judas"? Or "Onan"?
>  >
>  Actually, more seriously than Onan, it could be remarked that while
>  "Judas", the Greek version of the name, is (mostly) blocked by the
>  taboo avoidance we've been discussing, the Hebrew version Judah is
>  still alive and well.  (At least I assume these are the same
>  name--that's usually the way it works.)
>
>  L
>

--
Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic,
      Asian & African Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027
e-mail: preston at msu.edu
phone: (517) 353-9290



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