What’s In A Name?

There is a relationship between what we call something (or someone) and how we feel about it. This relationship works both ways. We use names to convey feelings, but a name can also affect how we feel about something.

This leads to some interesting, and sometimes funny, names. For example, it leads to gimmicks like the authoritarian “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”, and bug fixes called “updates” (or “stability improvements” as I saw recently).

Using a craftily devised name to project an image is not new, but I think the practice is abused to such an extent these days that the value of names has become worthless. Furthermore, all the good names are already taken. Therefore, I propose to abolish all names and henceforth use only GUIDs (or for the less democratically inclined, serial numbers issued by a central numbering authority).

One thought on “What’s In A Name?”

  1. Ah yes, going back to the days of the mainframe. Funny how many things reach back to older practices and are seen as brand new by the current generations.

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