Greetings from the deep end!
I think that when writing, be it blogs or essays, songs or recipes, the title is the most difficult thing to come up with. I can write words all day long. I can write on different topics and in different styles, perhaps not well, but I can do it and I do enjoy it. Naming things, however, is the greatest pain EVER! Anyone who has ever tried to name their children knows exactly what I am talking about. You want a name that flows and sounds natural but you also want it to be unique and stick out in the minds of the people thinking of or using the name. Pam and I went with Xander and Aryll. We picked the names in the second year of our marriage, 2 years before Xander was born and 3.5 years before Aryll was. Why? Because that is how long it takes to come up with a really good name for a kid. The names Pam and I chose ROCK!
See, some people wait until the last minute to name their child. They often think that, "When the baby is born, when we meet him/her, we will know what the perfect name for our child is." People who choose to name children in this fashion really can only have two outcomes. The most common outcome is, they meet the kid and are so engrossed in the new glow of parenthood that their mind shuts off and they name the poor kid whatever random name happens to pop into their head (George, Stan, Hoover, Doctor Montgomery to the ER please...). This is too bad for the poor kid that will share his/her name with forty other kids in their graduating class and have teachers, friends and bosses confuse them for the rest of their lives. Their boss will be like, "Secretary! Get Bob Smith up here right away!" The poor secretary has no idea which "Bob Smith" her boss really wants. So she will close her eyes, point at the list and call whichever of the forty "Bob Smith's" her finger lands on. Next thing you know, the wrong "Bob Smith" gets fired from NASA and the incompetent "Bob Smith" is still trying to send rockets into space and will eventually be responsible for the destruction of half of the moon because the "Bob Smith" that got fired was the one who could do basic addition.
The other, less common outcome is from parents who, when faced with the new child still try for the uncommon name but since their mind isn't working as a part of the new parent vertigo come up with totally random things that a sane person wouldn't name their dog (Weasel, Apple, Passion Fruit, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Extract...). This poor child probably has a celebrity for a parent. I think we can feel for this kid with no further explanation.
All of that brings me back to the general process for naming things. Be it children, blogs, songs or recipes, a name, or title if you will needs to fully represent the subject it is being chosen for. Take the name of the radio show in the movie "O Brother Where Art Thou?", it was called, "Pass the Biscuits, Pappy O'Daniel Flour Hour". This is a great name as it sticks out in the mind of the reader and defines what the (listener, in this case) will be in for. The title tells us that we will obviously be spending the next half hour of radio time hearing about how to make biscuits with an old man named "Pappy" in a 1960's, hippy, love everybody manner.
No real point in the blog today. Mostly just spewing words. Hope you got a good laugh out of it. Assuming that you are actually reading this and didn't quit reading in the first paragraph. Have a good one!
