If you're writing in 1st person present tense, you can't name your POV character's friend Simon, because then you have to follow everything that character says with "Simon says," which makes it pretty tough to take him seriously.
Posted by Meredith (Member # 8368) on :
Posted by telflonmail (Member # 9501) on :
Posted by Pyre Dynasty (Member # 1947) on :
I once knew a girl who was writing a series of stories about a soldier. When he was a Private she didn't think anything of his last name Sanders, then he progressed in rank and eventually became a Colonel. She was inconsolable.
Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :
Pyre, that one is probably worse than mine. Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
There was Captain Major Major, from Heller's Catch-22, whose burning ambition was to be promoted one rank and be Major Major Major...
Posted by MattLeo (Member # 9331) on :
When I was in high school I worked in a hospital that had both a Dr. Paine and a Dr. Misery. Worse yet, this was in the days before cell phones and when even pagers were rare, so that one sometimes heard, "Paging doctors Paine and Misery," over the loudspeaker.
Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :
Makes you wonder what Dr. Misery's ancestors did to get them that surname.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
quote:Originally posted by wetwilly: If you're writing in 1st person present tense, you can't name your POV character's friend Simon, because then you have to follow everything that character says with "Simon says," which makes it pretty tough to take him seriously.
Sounds to me like "Simon says" is ripe for being taken humorously, albeit with an underlying grain of seriousness and posing a greater truth.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
Anyone remember Heinlein's character named Wyoming Knott?
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Isn't she a provocateur in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress? Clever-cute but not too darling clever. Like Dick Katz in Jonathan Franzen's Freedom. Subtly sublime.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
And when you shorten her first name to Wy, you can say "Wy Knott?"
Posted by MartinV (Member # 5512) on :
The whole purpose of that name was that the AI understood the joke.
Love that book, by the way.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
And then Heinlein dropped it and referred to the character as "Wyoh"...
*****
I am, as I have stated, fond of my last name, which is distinct and unusual---but do not ask me how fond I am of it around Christmastime...
Posted by skadder (Member # 6757) on :
I knew a James Nastic once.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
When Heinlein introduces Ms. Knott I wondered what her parents were thinking naming her Wyoming. Heinlein pulled off an artful participation mystique spell. The imagined secondary world reality is artful enough to smooth over the name's potential challenge to willing suspension of disbelief. All three narrative meaning spaces managed artfully.
Posted by MartinV (Member # 5512) on :
Nastic is most likely a slavic name, meaning the 'c' in the end is not supposed to be pronounced 'k' but 'ch'.
Posted by JoBird (Member # 9883) on :
I knew a guy named Nad. He was on the football team back in high school. Whenever the football players would run out on the field the cheerleaders would chant their names.
Go Tommy! Go Tommy! Go JoJo! Go JoJo!
Every time they got to Nad the crowd would join in.
Go Nad! Go Nad!
Posted by shimiqua (Member # 7760) on :
In High School, I knew a kid named Richard Head.
Posted by MattLeo (Member # 9331) on :
quote:Originally posted by shimiqua: In High School, I knew a kid named Richard Head.
I once worked for a physicist named Dick Bigger. Apparently he hadn't made himself popular with the techs at his old lab. We sometimes got shipments of surplus equipment from there and our shipping and receiving department soon learned where to deliver stuff addressed to "Dr. Big Dickwad".
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
Okay. I think we're getting carried away here.
Maybe this topic has served its purpose?
Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :
I think attributing a purpose to this topic is being very generous. Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
Well, if the topic has a purpose, then I don't have to delete it, but I may have to lock it.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)