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THE LOUNGE
The Lounge is the newly expanded free-talk section of the Forum. You can post anything here about any topic outside English grammar and usage. Wide-ranging discussions and debates will be allowed in the Lounge subject only to the condition that the subjects are not unlawful, obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, and threatening. As in the Forum’s sections on English grammar and usage, we expect discussants to keep the Lounge a vibrant venue for relevant, healthy, and civilized discussions, not impertinent, angry, or violent ones.
So if you have any non-grammar thought or idea you’d like to share, make the Lounge the sounding board for it now! Let your fellow Forum members help you germinate the seed of that idea if it’s a good one—or terminate it if it turns out to be otherwise.
My Name is…
By Angel B. Casillan
When I was growing up, I had several nicknames, and so did my friends. We acquired names by various ways, mostly from teasing or from events that happened to us personally. Some names stuck while others faded away with time.
So here’s how I think names came about…
What is in a name besides merely the letters?
It is what’s in the person that will really matter.
When you are called handsome but you know you’re not,
Would you feel insulted and would you just toss it out?
Would you feel ridiculed if you were called a genius,
If you knew that your IQ was in the hundred minus?
But if you were slow and couldn’t get the meaning,
Would people call you impaired or some other put-down?
When you use a name that describes you as bright,
Is that indicative of an ego that doesn’t sound right?
When names had been the way people were described,
Wasn’t that the beginning of how our names were derived?
Times there were when portrayals were such names
That could denote humor, disdain, or place of origin,
But the name that would stick is that one you’d never use,
For that unwanted one would be your nickname forever.
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