"Upset" & other nomenological phenomena

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 11:19 AM 11/20/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>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

Shades of the "Seinfeld" episode where Kramer borrows license plates
reading "As(s)man" for his own purposes. . . .










>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