Friends recommended trying out names, as in imagine yelling them at the top of your lungs in a crowded grocery store. Everyone now. Try it with me:<\/p>\n
Hmm. I\u2019m not sure that does it for me. Let\u2019s try this one:<\/p>\n
\nDear Aunt Janet,<\/p>\n
Thanks loads for the baby name book. It will join the fray to come up with The Perfect Name. I can\u2019t wait to find out how Bob will use this latest weapon to good \u2013 and devastating \u2013 advantage. He still thinks Homer Horatio Hicks will look great on that first book. I think he\u2019s equally excited that the initials would make a great cow brand. Maybe God will deliver me before I deliver this baby.<\/p>\n
Love,
\nLaura<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
*****<\/p>\n
Mr. Scatter couldn’t help but read out loud not only every name but also every meaning of every name. He read name after name, meaning after meaning, page after page.<\/p>\n
\u201c \u2018Charlotte. Little and womanly.\u2019 What do you think about \u2018Charmaine. A Latin clan name?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not bad, but it sounds like a brand of toilet paper.\u201d<\/p>\n
He wasn’t daunted. \u201c \u2018Chloe. Greek. Young, green shoot. Cynthia. Greek. Goddess from Mount Cynthos. Cleva. Middle English. Hilldweller.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you think about Jessica?\u201d I dared burst in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not there yet.\u201d He didn’t even turn his nose.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you mean you\u2019re not there yet? Can\u2019t you turn a few pages?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m only on the C\u2019s right now. Did you know that Claudia, a Latin word, was a clan name that probably meant \u2018lame?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
\u201c \u2018Hadden. Old English. Hill of Heather. Hadwin Old English. Friend in War.\u2019 What do you think about Hadwin?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, Honey.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c \u2018Haig. Old English. Enclosed with hedges. Harden. Old English. Valley of the hares.\u2019 Harden Hicks. Or maybe Harden Hadwin Hicks. Hadwin Harden Hicks? I know. Harden Haig Hicks: Valley of the hares enclosed with hedges.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHoney, I\u2019m trying to watch the pregame show.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c \u2018Heathcliff! Middle English. A cliff near a heath.\u2019 Heathcliff! What do you think about that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt sounds too much like \u2018Wuthering Heights.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople this day and age probably think it\u2019s a cartoon cat. You don\u2019t like Heathcliff?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHoney, the game\u2019s on.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat game?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know. The game we paid for? The game we rushed to finish dinner so we\u2019d be able to watch?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t like Heathcliff?\u201d<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
The alarm clock blasted its nasty beep, and Mrs. Scatter groggily staggered to the shower. The comforting water began to lift her haze. She felt secure, assured in her little space, her senses cocooned by the pelting water, the warm steam and the whir of the ceiling fan. She turned off the shower and wrapped a big, fuzzy towel around herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cPRUNELLA!\u201d A voice boomed through the door. \u201cA small plum! That ought to be a good one for when the kid\u2019s old and wrinkled!\u201d<\/p>\n
Mrs. Scatter shook her head and breathed deeply. \u201cWhat\u2019s the difference between a plum and a prune?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure. I always thought a prune was a dried plum, just like raisins are made from grapes. But then those long skinny plums are called Italian prunes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLook it up!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
Of course we finally came up with The Perfect Name. In fact we liked it so much the first time, we used it again. You don\u2019t have to imagine yelling it in a crowded grocery store. We did one better than that. We just quietly hit publish and told it to the world.<\/p>\n
Large Smelly Boys.<\/p>\n
Heaven help them if they ever find out what their dad really wanted to name them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mr. and Mrs. Scatter know all about the sacred naming process. In a recent post, Mr. Scatter waxed beautifully about William Faulkner and H.L. Mencken, Sir Toby Belch and some guy named Flem. As Mr. Scatter put it: \u201cNaming was a serious and sometimes flowery business. … Naming is an almost mystical occasion, an assigning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5604,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-316984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5604"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316984\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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