Is Elmo (Sesame Street) a "Friend of Dorothy"

[sagehen]

>As an historical note, I don't recall that we ever gave names to the various
>fish, amphibians, and reptiles that came under our care and control back in
>the notional ‘50s.  For one thing, they escaped, died, or ate each other too
>fast to make naming worthwhile.  My sisters did insist on calling a grass
>snake "Snavely", but we actually played with him.  I can see a wistful
>little guy like Elmo, with a fish readily observable in a tank, giving it a
>name as an expression of a desire to have some sort of personal
>relationship.
>
>
>
>As for your suggestion:  Oh, please.  Sometimes--no, all the time, a
>goldfish is just a goldfish.
>
>
>
>Seán Fitzpatrick
>Why doesn't global warming just go up out of the ozone hole?
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Someone gave my mother & me a pair of (?)guppies (tiny fish about a
half-inch long) which we kept in a tennisball-sized glass bowl.  We were
rather skeptical about their viability & each day would ask "Are they dead
yet?"  This devolved into becoming their names, to wit, Arethey & Deadyet.
One ate the other in due course, but we were never sure which was the
predator & which the prey.
(We weren't so heartless about all pets, and had had a string of dogs &
some cats at various times, painted turtles, &c.)
AM



~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org