As the English language evolved, the people in charge of naming things must have had a hoot. Out of all the possibilities, somehow a cow was named a cow and a tractor was named a tractor, and so on until all things were named.
OK, it was a little more evolutionary than that, but imagine the thrill – and the responsibility – of devising words.
These days the average person doesn’t get the chance to name an object unless they invent it first. The rest of us amuse ourselves with attempts to creatively use existing words or to improve on them, as in the case of sniglets – defined by inventor Rich Hall as any words that don’t appear in the dictionary, but should. Some samples:
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Alfred hitchcook: chef who stabs at a block of frozen vegetables to make them cook faster.
Tubloid: any periodical reserved for bathroom reading.
Triority: three things that need to be done first.
Witlag: the amount of time between delivery and comprehension of a joke.
Another option is to redefine existing words, like these entries from a Washington Post contest a few years ago:
Macadam: the first man on Earth, according to the Scottish bible.
Abdicate: to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
As it happens, we had a naming task last week. Hapless hacks had no time to duck as an editor advanced upon them with the crazed glint of stifled creativity in her eye.
“I need a pithy word or phrase that refers to the evolution of agriculture and the way today’s farmers have built upon all the great things done and grown and bred and invented by their fathers and grandfathers in the way of machinery and crops and livestock and buildings and dams and irrigation, and which recognizes the intervening changes while also giving reference to the future,” she said, whilst crossing her arms and tapping her foot.
“I’ll make a note of that,” said one.
“Let me sleep on it,” said another.
“Hmmm,” said a third, before recalling a pressing engagement elsewhere.
The upshot is “Building on a Legacy,” the title of page 81 this week, and the first in a monthly series leading up to the Producer’s 80th anniversary issue. Each month we plan to present a different aspect of prairie agriculture’s evolution, and each will feature a question to which we hope readers will respond.
Have a look and then send us your thoughts on the topic at hand. We’d love to have words from you.
