Musings: Names and Places

~by Mark Blackwell

I expect that names are just about the most important concepts that human beings ever came up with. Names are identifiers. Without names we would not be able to talk about much. Once out of pointing range of something, it would take forever to have any sort of conversation about it. And even then, any conversation you could have would necessitate playing some high-level charades.

But there was a time, long ago, when human language was pretty limited. So, the invention of naming things was most likely the catalyst for the evolution of our species. I wonder if the whole shebang got started with having different grunts for different things.

You know, like, “wah wah” would mean water. “Ouch” would have been for fire, sharp stickers stuff, and cave-bear attacks. And the first time any new thing would have been encountered probably elicited a sound like “wow.” If it was a really big new thing, the sound would be “woooow.” It’s not hard to recognize the drawbacks of being a bit too vague.

Right from the start, lots of things would have been sharing the same name—probably “wow.”

I’m sure that the paucity of vocabulary led to quite a few misunderstandings back in those early days. And I’m sure that the troglodytes living in one cave would have all agreed how to pronounce the limited words they had. But those people living over in the next valley refused to say “wow” correctly. And I’m pretty sure that the difference in dialect resulted in some early skirmishes, maybe even some small wars.

If you are reading this article, it is safe to assume that you have a passing facility with the English language. But did you know there are approximately one million words in English? And of those million words, more than 80,000 are nouns, and nouns are names.

One of the most important jobs that names have is identifying people. I think that early on our ancestors got tired of calling each other “wow” and expanded the common vocabulary by assigning new sounds to each other. I should take a moment here to make a confession: most of my information about the development of early linguistics is due to being an enthusiastic reader of “Alley Oop” comic strips in my formative years.

We all have names. It used to be that your name reflected the place where you were from, or the family or tribe you belonged to, or your vocation. Like Francis of Assisi or how the Irish affix an “O” to a lot of their surnames, which means descendent of a certain family such as Bernardo O’Higgins, Peter O’Toole and Paddy O’Furniture.

And then there are weird names.

For coming across weird names, you can’t beat reading Charles Dickens. He came up with wonderful characters and gave them unforgettable names: Ebenezer Scrooge, Martin Chuzzlewit, Mrs. Gummidge, and Uriah Heep. It’s rumored that Uriah Heep went on to some success in the music business, but the rest of Dickens characters continue to languish in novels.

There is a fine line separating weird names from funny names. Funny names are usually attached to real people. There are the old standbys like Ima Hogg, daughter of a governor of Texas. Contrary to popular belief, there was no Ura Hogg. In my seventy-five years, I have come across Crystal Ball, Shanda Lear, Armand Hammer, and Christian Guy. That last name reminded me of a Brown County settler named Wiley Guy.

Brown County has more than its rightful share of funny/interesting names for people and places. At the turn of the 20th Century, we even had our own version of Charles Dickens, his name was Kin Hubbard. He was the creator of “Abe Martin” and all the folks who populated a Brown County that existed about a half a dimension over but on a parallel track to the one we’re familiar with.

For those of you who don’t know Abe Martin, he was Brown County’s roving freelance philosopher from 1905 until—well, I still talk to him from time to time. He was a well-beloved or at least well tolerated neighbor. Other inhabitants of the county included Squire Marsh Swallow, Miss Germ Williams, Late Bud, Fawn Lippincut, Pinky Kerr and Wes Whipple.

While this parallel Brown County has a bunch of funny folks with funny names, our Brown County has a fair amount of funny place names.

“Gnaw Bone” is always a good start. And then there is “Scarce O’ Fat Ridge,” “Milk Sick Bottoms,” “Needmore,” and “Booger Holler.” “Pikes Peak” and “Bean Blossom” deserve a mention as well. And there are others, I just can’t think of them right now.

Both Brown Counties have a pretty good quota of quirky names of places and people.

So, if you like funny names and quirky people or if you come from a funny place or you are a quirky person, come on down for a visit. Brown County might just be for you.