Things That Should Have A Name

This is being reposted because more has been added to it. How about coining a few new names today?

ANTIWORDS 

Antiwords are words that started out as ordinary words but have been given a negative connotation. This does not include descriptive words just ordinary words that have been given a negative or sinister connotation, mostly by association with crime.

"Loitering" means simply waiting, but it has been associated with crime by use on police reports.

"Vicinity" means an area. But this also has been associated with crime. "He was seen loitering in the vicinity around the time that the crime took place".

"Motive" simply means the reason for doing something. It has also become associated with crime. "What was your motive in going there"? makes it sound as if a crime has been committed.

"Tampering" simply means to adjust something. But it has been given an immediate sinister connotation.

"Plotting" means simply to plan something. But "They were plotting what they were going to do on Saturday night"? makes it sound as if a crime was being planned.

"Collaborate" is maybe not as much of an antiword as some of the others. It means simply to cooperate. But it does have a sinister tone, like cooperating in something evil.

A "regime" is simply a government. But we never seem to use the word for friendly governments.

SILHOUETTE SHOOTINGS

Recently in the news have been people being shot because they went to the wrong house, or the wrong car in a parking lot, by mistake.

In the 1960s was a song called "Silhouettes". The song was a hit for several different bands. A girl lives in a subdivision where all the houses are identical. Her boyfriend comes over one evening and sees the silhouette of her kissing another guy through the curtains. He is first dismayed, and then enraged. He pounds on the door only to find that wasn't his girlfriend and he was on the wrong block.

If the song took place today the singer might have gotten shot for knocking on the wrong door. Let's call these shooting "Silhouette Shootings". They really should have their own name.

JUMP CONNECTIONS

Suppose that you are reading the news on your phone. You touch the link to an article that you want to read. But the site is still loading and jumping around as new parts load. You end up pressing the link to another article instead. Let's call this a "Jump Connection".

TIRE PUDDLES

When a parking lot is paved with asphalt sometimes cars will park there before the asphalt is completely dry. The weight of the car depresses the asphalt a little bit where the tires are. When it rains this causes small puddles to form. Let's call these "Tire Puddles".

THE "EMPTY BOX" TECHNIQUE

When my late brother was a young boy he somehow was given a toy in a box. My parents decided that the toy was too dangerous for a young child and took the toy away.

My brother was outraged and demanded the return of the toy. My parents waited until his bedtime and then put the empty box on a shelf beyond his reach. My brother was pacified, thinking that he had the toy back, but all he had was the empty box.

The Anglican Church, began by Elizabeth I after the Reformation, is today the largest single Protestant church. It is actually a family of churches, in America it is called the Episcopal Church. It was designed as a compromise between the Puritans and the remaining Catholics.

Most of England's Catholics joined the Anglican Church, even those who didn't want the Reformation. The Anglican Church was definitely Protestant, it had cut ties with the pope, but had retained so much of the appearance of Catholicism. Anglican leaders were even called "priests", instead of "ministers". It was enough for most Catholics, who didn't notice much difference from before.

England's Catholics had gotten the "empty box" of Catholicism.

Beware of a conservative government that has highly-visible ethnic or racial minorities. What is probable is that they are "empty boxes" intended to pacify those minorities because they most certainly will not benefit from the government's policies. The recent government of Liz Truss was all women and ethnic minorities, but it introduced policies that would overwhelmingly benefit wealthy mostly white males.

THE GEORGE WASHINGTON SYNDROME

Sometimes the issue arises of a region voting for independence from the parent country. Examples in recent years have been Quebec, Scotland and, Catalonia. The independence movement has always had a leader who tells the people how much better off they will be by being independent.

But the leaders of the independence movement have a very strong personal bias due to their own political careers. Are they really pushing for independence because it will be better for their people, or because it will be better for themselves?

Have you ever heard of George Washington? If you have it's because America gained independence from Britain. Have you ever heard of Jacques Parizeau? If you haven't it's because Quebec never gained independence from Canada.

The leaders of an independence movement have a vested interest in separating from the parent country because of how they will go down in history. Whether or not it is better for the people the leader of the movement will have a place in history as the mother or father of a new country.

"TECHNICALLY FORWARD BUT SYSTEM BACKWARD"

What I mean by this is that we set up a basic system of standards for a new field of technology, such as road traffic or computers. For decades we make progress in the new field, but we are still using the same now-inefficient and outmoded basic system.

The first example that comes to mind is traffic lights. There is so much discussion nowadays of "smart technology" but traffic lights are about as dumb as technology can get. How many times have you seen an intersection with a dozen cars stopped for a red light on one street while there are no cars on the perpendicular street, but that street has the green light? If there was a dunce cap for technology surely traffic lights would get it.

So much progress has been made in making cars more fuel-efficient, and reducing emissions, only to have the cars spending far too much time idling needlessly at a red light.

Another example of being " Technically forward but system- backward" is the primitive ASCII system used in computer encoding, that dates from the 1960s. Each bit in a computer data storage has two possibilities, being either a 1 or a 0. Eight bits is defined as a "byte", which has 256 possible combinations. Each byte is used to store a character, such as upper or lowercase letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and various unprinted control codes.

But this is now inefficient in the extreme. This ASCII system is one of my favorite targets in the compound posting, "Computer Science".

With modern spellchecker technology why do we need capital letters? Just use lowercase and then let a spellchecker fill in the caps at the other end. 

However many total characters we are going to use why not consider it as a number system with a base equal to the total number of characters, instead of ten or binary? Then consider the whole text as one big number, and then translate it into binary before sending it, and then translate it back into the original "number" at the other end? That would be a far more efficient use of space, not requiring any new technology just a change in the basic system.

COMPLEMENTARY NAMES

What I mean by this is first names of people that are different names but are similar enough so that parents wouldn't give the names to siblings. I definitely think that it deserves a name.

"Judy", "Julie" and, "Julia" are three completely different names. But it's very unlikely that you will ever see three sisters with these three names, because they are so similar. Complementary Names have to be completely different names and do not include different forms of the same name, such as "William" and "Bill", or foreign versions of a name, or different spellings of a name, or nicknames.

Here are some more examples of Complementary Names.

John and Jonathan

Sherrie and Cheryl

Marie, Mary and, Maria

Susan and Suzanne

Ann and Anna

Paula, Paulette and, Pauline

CAMERA FIRES

When there is a serious protest or demonstration, anywhere in the world, what is the first thing that the protesters do?

The answer is that they light a fire.

First, the fire conveys the seriousness of the protest. "Just look at all this fire. This is not just a bunch of senior citizens protesting a cutback in library hours, this is a real protest".

But even more importantly, the fire gives the news cameras something to focus on. If a protest is held during the day more people are likely to show up, but if at night it is more difficult to identify protesters and the fire has a greater visual effect. If not buildings then a vehicle is the usual target, particularly a police vehicle.

This should really have a name. Since the fires are lit for the news cameras, let's call them "camera fires".

NATURE GUILT

In North America there are countless roads, streets and, avenues named for trees. 

Humans have always been attached to the trees around them. I think there is always some feeling of guilt when trees are cut down. But trees have to be cut down so that cities can be built.

So what we do is name streets after trees. Most of the trees are gone but we can drive down streets named for them.

So many other names that are endlessly seen in streets come from the natural surroundings that were plowed under to make way for the street.

A "summit" is the top of a hill, a "crest" is the top of a ridge.

A "grove" is a grouping of trees, a "glade" is a natural clearing in a wooded area.

A " glen" is a narrow valley, a "dale" is a wide valley.

Let's call this "nature guilt".

THE NAME CRUNCH

We can find and reconnect with people anywhere in the world through social media. This is a wonderful development that people in the past could only imagine.

But there is a very serious roadblock that has nothing to do with technology. The world's population has increased but, for the most part we are using the same names for people as centuries ago. The result is that there might be many thousands of people with the same name.

What good is it to be able to look up someone you used to know, only to find that there are countless people with the same name?

The fact that not only has the world's population greatly increased but we can access people across the world by social media, yet it is hindered by the fact that we are still using the same names for people, meaning that countless people might have the same name, could be called the "Name Crunch".

THE LINE OF RESPECT

This is something that I have long noticed but have never seen any reference to. It is really about time that it had a name.

In ordinary global news reporting all countries are not created equal. At first it seems as if they are but they aren't. 

Has anyone ever wondered why, when a war or disaster takes place, it is all right for the news to show dead bodies in some countries but not in others?

I do not mean wakes, or if there is a special reason for showing the body. I mean just routine news reporting when there are dead bodies to be seen. In some countries the bodies will be shown but in other countries they won't.

I recall seeing murder victims photographed lying dead in a pool of blood in the street, but such a scene would never be shown if it took place in a western country. I have never seen so many photos of dead bodies as in coverage of the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, but no dead bodies were to be seen in coverage of 9 / 11.

My father had a series of books about the Second World War. The books were very matter-of-fact in tone, from a strictly military perspective. This general on this side led this battle and that general on that side led that battle. This side developed this weapon and that side developed that weapon. Both sides were portrayed as equally human and received roughly equal coverage. There was very little in the books about which side was right and which was wrong.

But the true perspective of the books emerged in the showing of dead bodies. The bodies of Axis soldiers were shown, and often close up. The bodies of Soviet soldiers were occasionally shown, but only at a distance and never close up. Bodies of soldiers of the western Allies were, however, absolutely never shown.

The only time that I can recall seeing dead bodies shown in news events in the U.S was bodies of prisoners visible in the aftermath of the 1971 uprising at Attica State Prison, in New York State. Again this does not apply to wakes or if there is a specific reason for showing the body.

There does not seem to be any kind of established rules of when it is or isn't acceptable for the news to show dead bodies. But there is most definitely an unspoken agreement, and it really should be given a name.

Let's call it the "Line of Respect". If a nation or group of people is above the Line of Respect then it is not all right to show their dead bodies in ordinary news reporting. But if they fall below the line then it is.

GRANULARITY

I have already written about what I call "granularity" here. Granularity is when we tend to mistake the finite for the infinite or the infinitesimal.

One example is gloves in a drawer. Suppose that there are ten gloves in a drawer, five left and five right, and are well-mixed. You reach into the drawer and, without looking, pull out two gloves. What are the odds that you have a matching left-right pair?

Since there was an equal number of each your first reaction might be to say 50%, or 1/2. But only if there were an infinite number of gloves would the odds be 1/2. Because there are a finite number of gloves the odds must be greater than 1/2.

When you take the first glove it leaves 9 gloves, 5 that would be a match and 4 that wouldn't. Therefore the odds of pulling out a matching pair are 5/9. The gloves are finite "grains", rather than a smooth medium, that is why I call it "granularity".

Another example of granularity is a spacecraft at some distance from a planet. It may seem logical that the center of mass and the center of gravity of the planet would be one and the same. But only if the spacecraft was an infinite distance from the planet would the two be one and the same.

If the spacecraft is at a finite distance from the planet the two must be different, with the center of gravity being closer to the spacecraft than the center of mass. This is because gravity works by the Inverse Square Law and so the nearer half of the mass has a greater gravitational effect on the spacecraft than the further half.

Yet another example of granularity is repeatedly playing a game of odds. If the odds of winning are 1/20 and you have played 19 times without a win then you are "due for a win" on your next try.

Casinos will really like you if you think like this but it is wrong. With each game the odds start over again at 1/20, presuming that no elimination is involved in the game. Only if you play the game an infinite number of times will 1/20 of the games always be wins.

THE ASSOCIATION SYNDROME

What I refer to as the "Association Syndrome" is how people get associated with each other in a way that is not representative at all of their life or is not what they would have wanted.

The first name that comes to mind is that of the late actress Sharon Tate. She was a well-known actress until she became the best-known murder victim of the Manson Family, in August 1969. This could be called the "Sharon Tate Syndrome".

Is it right for Sharon Tate to be virtually entirely defined by the tragic last few minutes of her life? This psychotic mass murder was in no way her fault. She never met or heard of Charles Manson, who wasn't at the murder scene himself, and had no idea whatsoever of the insane theology for which she was being murdered.

Manson believed that the Beatles' White Album was specifically communicating with him. The Apocalypse foretold in the Bible would be a race war in the United States. It was a time of high racial tension and Manson's family would brutally murder wealthy white people around Los Angeles, making it appear as if black militants had done it.

The resulting apocalyptic race war would result in Manson ruling over the world as Christ. He actually changed his middle name to "Willis". Jesus is referred to as the "Son of Man" and now his name was Charles Willis Manson, "Charles' Will Is Man's Son".

Sharon Tate had no idea of the lunacy that would not only take her life, but also her identity. She will be forever associated with it because she was it's most famous victim. All else that Sharon Tate ever did, until the last few minutes of her life, is now only about one percent of what comes to mind upon seeing her name. She is forever associated with the maniac that she never met or heard of but who had her brutally killed.

That's why it should be called the Association Syndrome.