Joden

[Kenneth Allen Hyde]

On Mon, 9 Sep 2002, Annette Karmiloff-Smith wrote:

> If there are psychotherapists out there, should I tell the parents or
> not?

I'm not a psychotherapist, but as someone who has suffered an inordinate
amount of teasing because of my name ("Hyde"), I would personally vote for
warning the parents that it may become an issue years down the line.  At
least that way, when/if it happens, the parents can't turn to you and say
"You're a linguist! You could have warned us!"  Besides, if the child in
question is a boy, he's going to have enough of a burden being called Jody
(which despite a few exceptions is predominantly a feminine name).  I
doubt if the possibility of multi-lingual playground teasing is ever going
to equal that particular burden (assuming that he/she has playmates that
are linguistically sophisticated enough to make the cross-language
connections).

Ken *gulp* Hyde

Kenneth Allen Hyde     |  No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife
Univ. of Delaware      |  between the shoulder blades will seriously
Dept. of Linguistics   |  cramp his style  -- Old Jhereg proverb
kenny at Udel.Edu         |  A mind is a terrible toy to waste! -- Me

//www.ling.udel.edu/hyde/prof/