What's in a name?
Published: Thu, 10/17/13
When I was growing up in North London in the late 60's and
early 70's there was a woman in the neighbourhood who was known
as the white witch. Even the adults called her that as I recall.
I have no idea who she really was but she was middle aged (probably
around 50 although she seemed ancient to me as a child) and she
always wore a long white dress, some kind of white headscarf and
clear coloured jewlery of some type. I don't remember her
behaving in a way that was at all unusual apart from her very
individual dress sense. This was still a time when women generally
wore hats and gloves to go out and men were being very informal
when they were not wearing a jacket and tie. So, we had our own
local witch and I have to admit I knew nothing more about her apart
from what she looked like and her assigned name.
However everyone noticed her and if you said the words 'White
Witch' anyone in the neighbourhood knew exactly who you meant.
If you could now travel back in time to Finchley around 1969 you
would probably recognise this lady instantly from what I have just
described to you. This is because you have a name as well as a
description and to really see something you have to be able to name
it. The mark of a real gardner is that they can name the plants in
their garden, including the weeds, a real twitcher knows the latin
names of the birds he (and it usually is a he) watches, a genuine
petrol head knows makes, models and specifications of the cars he
(again almost certainly a he) is interested in. Women of course
have their own lists of names they can assign almost automatically.
This is the point of being a celebrity, your name is known. It can
be a two edged sword of course when something goes wrong but when
it comes to getting people to a film or to read a book or even just
product endorsement a known face and name is worth a fortune. Why
did you think Public Relations was big business?
So if you are going to really see something you are going to have
to be able to name it. You can make up your own names for things
if you want to. You may just pick up on the assigned name as
happened with the Lady I began by describing. Or, best of all, try
and learn the real name of things since you can't really see
them clearly until you do.
We use some interesting names in Stav as you probably know. You
can learn them as lists quite easily but to see the principles they
really apply to you need to be shown. So why not come along to one
or both of the last two courses this year, Salisbury this Saturday
and Evesham on the 16th of November
http://www.iceandfire.org.uk/train.html
regards
Graham