I can't now remember why, at dinner, Tim told me the Italian for onion. I was intrigued though, because it's nothing like the French, which the English is derived from. I looked it up in several different languages and I'm still puzzled. It seems that both the Spanish/Italian/Portugese/Romanian come from the Latin, but so does the French, from a completely different word.
Time was, I'd have done all the research and discovered what I wanted to know. Now, I'm not sure I can be bothered. I will remain intrigued, without quite enough zest to mind.
We were talking about names, too. I know several people who've chosen to change their name, for one reason or another. Brenda was 70 years old when she finally decided to change to Zella and, such was the strength of her personality, no one ever called her Brenda again. Sophie was called so by her husband-to-be, who mistook what her name actually was (not his fault) and said that Sophie suited her far more than Janet, and so it does. Dorothy changed to Jane because Dot rhymed with Stott and she'd been teased for too many years - her mother (and Sophie's) never accepted it though, so which you called her depended on which side of the family you knew better.
Most people seem not greatly to like their given name. I liked mine, growing up, because of the Z, mostly. I enjoyed the slash - slash - slash of the Z, like Zorro (I was a child addicted to television, so have always been tolerant of computer games and so on), I liked the ë diaeresis, that the name was a Greek word, that it was distinctive and I didn't mind too much that no one knew how to pronounce or spell it, if they could remember it at all. I quite happily answered to Snowy, Suzie, Zo or anything else, and still do. Indeed, my friend Sophie and I were quite used, as adults, to answering to each others' name.
I really do call my sister Wink, or Winkie. But her name is Melanie, though she's usually known as Mel nowadays. Why she's Wink is quite another story, however.
Time was, I'd have done all the research and discovered what I wanted to know. Now, I'm not sure I can be bothered. I will remain intrigued, without quite enough zest to mind.
We were talking about names, too. I know several people who've chosen to change their name, for one reason or another. Brenda was 70 years old when she finally decided to change to Zella and, such was the strength of her personality, no one ever called her Brenda again. Sophie was called so by her husband-to-be, who mistook what her name actually was (not his fault) and said that Sophie suited her far more than Janet, and so it does. Dorothy changed to Jane because Dot rhymed with Stott and she'd been teased for too many years - her mother (and Sophie's) never accepted it though, so which you called her depended on which side of the family you knew better.
Most people seem not greatly to like their given name. I liked mine, growing up, because of the Z, mostly. I enjoyed the slash - slash - slash of the Z, like Zorro (I was a child addicted to television, so have always been tolerant of computer games and so on), I liked the ë diaeresis, that the name was a Greek word, that it was distinctive and I didn't mind too much that no one knew how to pronounce or spell it, if they could remember it at all. I quite happily answered to Snowy, Suzie, Zo or anything else, and still do. Indeed, my friend Sophie and I were quite used, as adults, to answering to each others' name.
I really do call my sister Wink, or Winkie. But her name is Melanie, though she's usually known as Mel nowadays. Why she's Wink is quite another story, however.
4 comments:
So now I've had to go and look up the Italian for onion and must confess I've never seen that word before. When my daughter was little, she called her older brother Babble (or Babul, no-one ever actually wrote it down) because she couldn't say Samuel. We don't use it now, but everyone knows who we mean. His younger brother called him Bam. My dad used to call me Anna all my life, because I couldn't say Jenny and said An-an.
I didn't know it at all, though when I looked up the Latin it seemed vaguely familiar - that might just be because it wasn't dissimilar from the Italian, of course.
My baby nickname, for a similar reason to yours, was Dodo. The only person who sometimes called me by it, later, was my mother.
I changed my names ages ago, but still would answer to the old when when it was called. My mama had no issue with the name change and used to say, "just don't call her late for dinner!" She was a hoot! xoxo
We call our baby a name for whatever reason and it has to suit for their whole life - and it might not. So we should be free to change it. But few of us do so officially, of course. Having pretty well given up on changing my surname at this late stage of life - I'm resigned to having two names for the foreseeable future - I realise that it's too much of a faff for most of us.
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