Naming and the power of fricatives

Snoosh & Flarkette: a cautionary tale

Let's imagine for a moment,

that there are two children. Siblings, friends, cousins—it doesn't matter. One is named Snooshy and the other is Flarkette. Gender isn't important, though you may draw some conclusions from the names, which also supports particular theories on naming.

Anyway, Snooshy and Flarkette were always getting into trouble. They would misbehave, and someone would yell at them. Parents, teachers, strangers in attendance at the Autumnal Feast on Grimsby Square. Well, years spent on the receiving end of all of that screaming and yelling took their toll. Flarkette grew up to be a very defensive, anxious character, while Snooshy laughed everything off, but never really learned any important lessons from childhood. In fact, it could be said that Snooshy fared worse, never showing any remorse and becoming a real ne'er-do-well. None of that matters for our purposes, but you may want to know in case you are looking to hire someone for your startup.

Now. Go to your mirror and make as mean a face as you can and yell, with vitriol, "Snooshy!" Then, making that same face again, and with that same vitriol, yell, "Flarkette!" Do it again, slowly. Do it again, exaggerating your speech. I couldn't get anyone to do this when I asked them to, so if you did the experiment, congratulations.

The moral of the story is that words and sound are powerful. If you didn't have a slight twinge of recognition when you made a mean face and slowly said Flarkette's name, then we'll have another more overt conversation at some point when you have more time. But the point is that when you put words and sounds to work for your ideas, they do a nice job. Some words make you laugh and some don't fit in where you put them. And some are downright gnarly. Some are feminine and some are easy to say and some are awful and embarrassing to say (pretty sure there's consensus on the top offender). Perhaps we'll do a poll here later on. That will be fun.

There are so many factors that make us think and feel certain things when we say a word. These things come from our childhoods, from our schooling, from our reading, from associations, from slang, from the shape you have to make with your mouth when you say the word or sound, from innate rhythms in our respective languages and in our respective brains. And the more you know about this stuff and what it consciously and subconsciously does to people, the better you are at selecting words and sounds for various purposes. The neat thing is that names will work very hard for you when you've chosen them for the right job. Choose them unwisely and they will only mock you. But when they work, they work.