Thursday, July 17, 2008

Nominative determinism again

Was reading Al Jazeera on the Darfur conflict and this caught my attention:

"There is always going to be some sort of reluctance to demonise their own, the Arabs as they will see themselves," Opheera McDoom, Reuters correspondent in Darfur, says.

A journalist called McDoom. In one of the worst warzone hells on earth. That's just right up there with the dentist called Dr Payne and Dr Blood giving a transfusion to a patient whose surname is Body.

Since we're on the subject, here's an extract from the Wiki entry, quoting New Scientist:

"WE recently came across a new book, Pole Positions - The Polar Regions and the Future of the Planet, by Daniel Snowman. Then, a couple of weeks later, we received a copy of London Under London - A Subterranean Guide, one of the authors of which is Richard Trench. So it was interesting to see Jen Hunt of the University of Manchester stating in the October issue of The Psychologist: "Authors gravitate to the area of research which fits their surname." Hunt's example is an article on incontinence in the British Journal of Urology (vol 49, pp 173-176, 1977) by J. W. Splatt and D. Weedon.[1] (This really does exist. We've checked it.)

Dunno about the rest of you, but I just laughed out loud at the sight of Splatt and Weedon. Recommend checking out the Wiki for more, but here's one more gem that I just had to highlight: The former Archbishop of Manila - Cardinal Sin.

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