Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-11
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

every one can picture him perfectly.
What need Is there to call him j. Light
food Mellingforth? Would such COM
bination of syllableS, or similar ones,
make us see the red-headed man any
better?
Sometimes we have wondered If the
problem of divorce has not been in
tenSified by the tyranny of names. A
woman seems to be tickle, as she mar
ries and divorces one man after an
other, but perhaps she may be a sensi-
tive soul who rebels against the harsh
prison of a single name.
What" she says to herself, "Must I
go through life known as Mrs. Blubber?
Can I never be free from it? When /
married him did not realize how it
would sound, but now that 1 meet it
everywhere I can stand 1t no longer"
Picture the sensitive woman, greeted
everywhere as Mrs. Blubber." There is
no escape. She Is willing to put I'D with
the way her husband eats poached egg.
she long ago gave up hoping that he
would eat them In any other way. She
had shut her eyes to all that. She knew
every motion Of the egg from plate to
mouth. 1t was terrible, but it could be
endured.
1t haunted her day and night There
was no possibility now, forever. of her
ever being called by nice, fresh name.
such as Jones, or Smith, or Gray, or
White, or Smitherington, or Heywoodie
or Doolittle, or Golliackova or Natije-
witch.
It was Blubber, from now on and
forever more. Blubber, Blubber, Blub-
ber-
with a loud Shrek she reached for the
phone, and called up her lawyer.
y X X
AS an experiment in humanity, It
might be well to abolish all sorts of
names, and thus put mankind on its
own again in reference to this vast
universe. filled with galaxies, and gall
axies Of galaxies, and maybe even gall
axieS Of galaXieS of galaxieS.
When a taxicab driver leaned out to
berate a man driving a nobby $4,000
roadster, he would not be able to say,
as he does now, Say, get that tin can
out of the road"
Under the new system of nomencla-
ture-or, rather, the lack of it-he
would be forced to address the other in
the following chaSte language:
Say, get that conglomeration OF
things that go round, softly padded
aIIlAeQ 10 u mass OF y nara SuDSLdIlCe
and various softer substances, whose
object is to carry one from place to
place, out of the straight line In which
am now travelling"
The necessity for such an avoidance
Of names would cause any one to think
a bit. Take any field Of human en-
deavor. Take diplomacy. Suppose one
whose function it was to consider the
ways of nations. should take 1t into his
head to designate France.
He could not say France" under our
rules, but would be forced to convey
his idea in terms which would be ap-
plicable to that country, and to that
country alone.
How could he do it2 He might say
and we suppose it would be as good q
way as any, Where Alexandra Dumas
wrote" but even the peerless author OF
"The Three Musketeers' would be
barred. Certainly 1t would be an exer-
else in ingenuity, TO say nothing OF
patience and a few other virtues.
= Names are too much with us; late and
soon we are surrounded by a hedge of
them, preventing us from getting real
ideas Of anything. A friend would be
q friend Just the same without a name.
AS q matter of fact, where love resides
there is no need for names.