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And I won't tell no one your name
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greygirlbeast:
What does your first name mean?
Sonya is a Russian diminutive of Sophia: Greek σοφία, "wisdom." (I should be so lucky.) I was named for my great-grandmother on my mother's and her mother's side.
What does your middle name mean?
My first middle name is Leah, which is Hebrew of indeterminate origin; I've seen translations from "weary" to "wild cow" to "mistress," so anyone fluent in Hebrew should feel to comment and enlighten me. A disturbing number of people over the years have assumed from the pronunciation that I was named after Star Wars. My second middle name, which I didn't acquire until midway through childhood, is Glixman—my mother's maiden name and one of the more creatively spelled Ellis Island bastardizations of Glucksmann, "lucky man." Could be worse. Shaun Ferguson.
What does your last name mean?
Taaffe? Have some more indeterminacy.* I've most commonly heard the name explained as a Welsh patronymic for David. (Taffy was a Welshman . . .) I've also seen etymologies based on the rivers Taff or Tâf in Wales. In truth, I haven't the faintest.
So what does your name mean when put together?
Er . . . a little lucky weary Welsh wisdom? In a river? I need fewer adjectives around here.
What would you have been named if you were the opposite gender?
Simon, which I believe is a Hellenized form of the Hebrew name Shimeon. It's connected to the verb "to hear," but I'm not sure in what grammatical capacity; I've never looked it up.
Any other name oddities?
I've never attracted any nickname that stuck. By now, I would probably respond to Sovay, which is itself a variant of Sophia. I have discovered over the years that I'm superstitious about sharing my Hebrew name and I'm not entirely sure why.
Do you like your name?
Yes. It's sort of a cultural smash-up, but I am fond of it.
What do you like best about it?
The aforementioned cultural smash-up seems to have ensured that no one else has the name. (At least, if someone does, she hasn't yet turned up on Google.) And it's peculiar, which might explain why I'm always giving my characters the kind of names that makefleurdelis28's longstanding challenge to use the spam name "Cadfael Aronowitz" in one of my stories sound, sadly, not implausible at all.
What do you like least about it?
The apparent inability of 99% of the population to pronounce my last name properly. I was most impressed by the telemarketer who managed to insert a voiced glottal stop in between the a's and consequently put about four syllables into it. I'm just waiting for a !Kung click to show up in there somewhere. Oh, and my high school spelled it improperly every year of the yearbook. Even the year I graduated. And my parents sent a letter to the yearbook editors to make sure that it would not be misspelled. That was amusing.
If you had to change your name (witness protection program, whatever), what would you want it to be?
So far I've written down three replies and ruled out each one of them for some reason or another. I may have to think about this one.
*The geography, at least, can be readily traced: the name starts out in Wales, moves to Ireland in the twelfth or thirteenth century, picks up some peerage in the 1600's, relocates to Austria and gathers aristocracy there over the next couple of centuries, and then World War I came along and all the titles went pffft. Not that my branch of the family, which came over in the mid-nineteenth century, would have been in the running for any sort of noble inheritance, but I'm still amused. At least I get to claim kinship, however distant, with some intriguing historical figures.
greygirlbeast:What does your first name mean?
Sonya is a Russian diminutive of Sophia: Greek σοφία, "wisdom." (I should be so lucky.) I was named for my great-grandmother on my mother's and her mother's side.
What does your middle name mean?
My first middle name is Leah, which is Hebrew of indeterminate origin; I've seen translations from "weary" to "wild cow" to "mistress," so anyone fluent in Hebrew should feel to comment and enlighten me. A disturbing number of people over the years have assumed from the pronunciation that I was named after Star Wars. My second middle name, which I didn't acquire until midway through childhood, is Glixman—my mother's maiden name and one of the more creatively spelled Ellis Island bastardizations of Glucksmann, "lucky man." Could be worse. Shaun Ferguson.
What does your last name mean?
Taaffe? Have some more indeterminacy.* I've most commonly heard the name explained as a Welsh patronymic for David. (Taffy was a Welshman . . .) I've also seen etymologies based on the rivers Taff or Tâf in Wales. In truth, I haven't the faintest.
So what does your name mean when put together?
Er . . . a little lucky weary Welsh wisdom? In a river? I need fewer adjectives around here.
What would you have been named if you were the opposite gender?
Simon, which I believe is a Hellenized form of the Hebrew name Shimeon. It's connected to the verb "to hear," but I'm not sure in what grammatical capacity; I've never looked it up.
Any other name oddities?
I've never attracted any nickname that stuck. By now, I would probably respond to Sovay, which is itself a variant of Sophia. I have discovered over the years that I'm superstitious about sharing my Hebrew name and I'm not entirely sure why.
Do you like your name?
Yes. It's sort of a cultural smash-up, but I am fond of it.
What do you like best about it?
The aforementioned cultural smash-up seems to have ensured that no one else has the name. (At least, if someone does, she hasn't yet turned up on Google.) And it's peculiar, which might explain why I'm always giving my characters the kind of names that make
fleurdelis28's longstanding challenge to use the spam name "Cadfael Aronowitz" in one of my stories sound, sadly, not implausible at all. What do you like least about it?
The apparent inability of 99% of the population to pronounce my last name properly. I was most impressed by the telemarketer who managed to insert a voiced glottal stop in between the a's and consequently put about four syllables into it. I'm just waiting for a !Kung click to show up in there somewhere. Oh, and my high school spelled it improperly every year of the yearbook. Even the year I graduated. And my parents sent a letter to the yearbook editors to make sure that it would not be misspelled. That was amusing.
If you had to change your name (witness protection program, whatever), what would you want it to be?
So far I've written down three replies and ruled out each one of them for some reason or another. I may have to think about this one.
*The geography, at least, can be readily traced: the name starts out in Wales, moves to Ireland in the twelfth or thirteenth century, picks up some peerage in the 1600's, relocates to Austria and gathers aristocracy there over the next couple of centuries, and then World War I came along and all the titles went pffft. Not that my branch of the family, which came over in the mid-nineteenth century, would have been in the running for any sort of noble inheritance, but I'm still amused. At least I get to claim kinship, however distant, with some intriguing historical figures.
Watermelons and Tailors - Part 1
As for Watermelontail it is the portmanteau of watermelon and tailor. Watermelon being the fruit, tailor refering to the sartorial djur, a shadowy race of creatures that like abandonded places, making cloth out of darkness and refining Very Interesting Poisons. They would have found your BPAL experimentation of interest.
I used to bake bagels when I was in school. This involved me getting up at 3:30 in the morning and driving down icy forested roads from Mount Hope (in backwoods Mansfield) to the University of Connecticut in my little red Dodge Rampage. I programmed my body to wake up moments before my alarm clock (so as not to wake my roomate) and was usually still asleep and working on somatic memory by the time the big 6 rack carosel oven was up to temperature.
One morning I woke into a dream of this, drove into work, very distinctly listening to "Cowboys" by Portishead, and let myself in. The lights were on in the kitchen, the boiler was on as well, the stereo was playing the same album, just where I left off, and the oven was on. The bagel shop smelled like a barbecue.
This did not put my mind in any sort of good order. I went into the back. The boiler was going over, and there was something I didn't quite identify (it was slightly meaty) inside it. I turned it down, careful to not get any of the soup that was sheeting down the sides on my hands. The oven door was closed and smoke was pouring out. Again, there was the barbecue, but now the definite smell of burning hair as well.
Portishead was playing "All Mine" on the stereo and it was very loud. I opened the hood.