"Joker"

[W Brewer]

CE: <<<I think the great majority of men in the world today . . . have NOT
been named with the "ideals" of the original name bearers in mind, but
after more immediate family members or popular culture figures, like I
was.>>>
WB: I think it is a gross oversimplification to extrapolate from one's own
personal situation to the rest of humanity. Name-giving customs vary. My
Doktorvater said that Swedish names had to conform to a government registry
(at least in the old days). My first name <Warren> came from one of my
father's WW2 navy buddies; the chain of transmission is lost on me. My
middle name <Andrew>, on the other hand, came from the Catholic Church's
list of saints: I had to have a saint's name at baptism (a naming
ceremony), and another saint's name for communion (joining the
congregation), and another saint's name for confirmation (becoming a
soldier of Christ, a crusader). The nuns had us focus on a saint's name for
meditation on his/her life. (I thought of becoming a missionary priest &
converting heathens who would martyr me and hang me on an X-shaped cross.)
Poverty, chastity, obedience: the sure path to Paradise. (Downright
anti-capitalist indoctrination.)  Amen, indeed.


On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 9:53 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Joker"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Apr 28, 2013, at 9:25 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
> > On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 5:27 PM, Cleve Evans
> > <cleveland.evans at bellevue.edu>wrote:
> >
> >> it is way premature to say that his parents were trying to support the
> >> original Tamerlane's "ideals" when choosing the name.
> >
> >
> > Amen! Especially when 99.44% of Americas have never heard of Chechens and
> > Chechnya, and even fewer have any idea who Tamerlane.
> >
> Well, we all know Kit Marlowe's "Tamburlaine", Parts I and II, don't we?
>  And we know enough about Chechnya to sent threatening notes to the embassy
> of the Czech Republic.
>
> LH
>
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