Let’s Talk! – What’s in a name?

This week’s dinner pondering is about a quote from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It’ s claim is that naming is irrelevant, as “that which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet”. In linguistic terms this means that the signifier doesn’t determine the significant. Let me claim that this might be the source of Babylonian confusion.

In so far, Romeo might be right: Let’s take the concept of a person. Already there are the classic concepts of man, woman, child, boy, girl; add all the different sociolects and dialects, and we come up with lots of more. And that is only in this one language. Yet, the association changes if I call a woman a lady, a maid, a spinster, or a wench. But Romeo didn’t mean that. He meant that if we called a woman a lion, the woman would still be the same concept.

The problem is that language only works in a community in which all members agree on the use of terminology. Taking the above example, if I told you that this Sunday there would be a lion taking care of visitors of the local historical museum – guess what would ensue! Because most people would think of the correct significant the term describes – a dangerous, wild animal, not a female person.

But it is not only the correct term that describes an object or a being. Sometimes, there are more than one of the same. This is why we add the state or nation behind a name that is used for a number of different places. Or we add a title or an occupation to a person. A closer description to a plant or an animal.

How often when reading an autobiography, a biography, or historical fiction, do I encounter spelling mistakes?! Does it matter to the story in itself? Not to the cursory reader. To them names are all hollow words, forgotten as soon as the page is turned, the book is closed, the next one is begun. But to those who research a topic, a source, a place, the correct spelling means everything. Let’s think of our own family trees – a name misspelled cruelly ends your paper trail. The town our ancestors come from will never be found on a map; we will never be able to visit our very roots. The inventor, artist, author of something won’t be found on the internet but somebody else with entirely different assets. No doubt, they will be interesting, too. But not for whom you searched.

Has it occurred to you how YOU are reacting when somebody calls you by a wrong name? Spells your name wrongly on an official paper? Mispronounces your name?

Romeo would defend them that it is still you whom they mean, wouldn’t he?! Or Shakespeare (or would he?). Wasn’t he so much wiser than that? And didn’t he prove Romeo to be a naïve, very emotional youth who dies from his own hand because he doesn’t look beyond what he perceives as reality, namely the feigned, not the real death of his love? Why should we believe that Romeo’s claim is right when we feel irritated that someone doesn’t get our name right? What effects does it even have if an innocent person is misnamed as a culprit?

In other words, a name describes identity.

As we perceive ourselves as unique, nothing else than the correct name, the correct spelling, the correct pronunciation will do. Not just for ourselves but for anybody and anything. We owe that to our own credibility as people who care. It’s not just a matter of appreciation; it’s a measure of precision, of mindfulness. Not just for us – also for the legacy we leave to our posterity.

What’s your angle?