Names and Labels (Top Posted)
Welcome! I’m going to start by talking about Names and Labels and explaining the Name I have given to this blog. Names and Labels can be so constraining and revealing at the same time. They put us in boxes of assumptions that go along with those names and labels. They can lead us astray by setting up expectations that any of us can be fully defined by our labels and names. At the same time, they can offer a glimpse into our identities that, as long as they are understood to be simply a beginning, can offer some insights into how we see ourselves. As author Bill Bryson wrote in The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way , “…there must be some conventions of usage. We must agree to spell cat c-a-t and not e-l-e-p-h-a-n-t and we must agree that by that word we mean a small furry quadruped that goes meow and sits comfortably on one’s lap and not a large lumbering beast that grows tusks and is exceedingly difficult to housebreak.” So, yes, Names and Labels have meanings