Dog On A Root

Part 3 of a 3 Part series on Names - jim Young “That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.” - Pee Wee Herman In my last article on names, in the Great North Arrow (September 1, Issue 16, Volume 10) I discussed how the unusual spelling of a first name could have some legal benefits. The use of unusual spellings of a first name however doesn’t always involve a legal conflict. For the first half of the 20th century, in the western world at least, most names were pretty common and easy to pronounce. Boys were often given names like Tom, Dick and Harry. Girls would be assigned names like Jane, Betty and Sue. But then came the 60s revolution and everything changed.  First it was just unusual names for children like Skye, Harmony, Jasmine, Ziggy, Summer, Dharma and Nirvana just to name a few that were chosen for their children by the hippies. As some of these names became more generally accepted, parents tried to find unique ways to spell their children’s names and Diane became Di-Anne, Michele b...

  - jim Young “Beware of false knowledge. It is more dangerous than ignorance.” - George Bernard Shaw “Fake news”, or more correctly “lies” have been around pretty much forever. The actual term “ fake news” however was first used in the 1890s. So although Donald Trump didn’t invent the term “Fake News”, according to Wikipedia, “Trump has been credited with popularizing the term by using it to describe any negative press coverage of himself”. Aye… there’s the rub. “Negative press” isn’t really the same thing as a “lie” now, is it? Regardless, wouldn’t you think that someone that is so sensitive to “negative press” and to be fair, even “misinformation” in some cases being reported about him, would be wary of the validity of any information from those same sources? At the very least, it would certainly behoove a politician running for such an important position as President of The United States Of America to vet the accuracy of this information prior to declaring it a fact on National...