![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the naming of things
Jan. 8th, 2009 08:34 pm
So, my parents discovered a mouse in their house. There was much dismay and some shrieking.
(It was, incidentally, a rather adorable small gray mouse that looked rather like the mice that live in the London Underground and are one of the things that make that system so much better than any other subway system--live entertainment while you wait, of the "Where's Waldo" variety.)
Following the discover of the mouse, there was discussion of the various ways in which one can go about no longer having a mouse in the house. Particularly quite fast mice in houses containing quite lazy cats. In my role as trouble-maker, I decided to dub the mouse Penelope and referred to Penelope as such thereafter.
By the second conversation, everyone else found themselves variously amused, pained, or merely somewhat bewildered by the fact that they too were thinking of the mouse as Penelope.
There's a reason why farmer-children are warned not to name the animals destined for the dinner table.
Names may or may not have power in the classic fantasy style. They do, however, have power.
And it's a very fun power to wield.
Try it sometime. Let me know the results.
(It was, incidentally, a rather adorable small gray mouse that looked rather like the mice that live in the London Underground and are one of the things that make that system so much better than any other subway system--live entertainment while you wait, of the "Where's Waldo" variety.)
Following the discover of the mouse, there was discussion of the various ways in which one can go about no longer having a mouse in the house. Particularly quite fast mice in houses containing quite lazy cats. In my role as trouble-maker, I decided to dub the mouse Penelope and referred to Penelope as such thereafter.
By the second conversation, everyone else found themselves variously amused, pained, or merely somewhat bewildered by the fact that they too were thinking of the mouse as Penelope.
There's a reason why farmer-children are warned not to name the animals destined for the dinner table.
Names may or may not have power in the classic fantasy style. They do, however, have power.
And it's a very fun power to wield.
Try it sometime. Let me know the results.
