Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language

130 Forbidden Words
length identified by whatever ruler or tape measure is to hand. All these are
some of the many ways of fixing the reference of metre. Similarly, the
reference of the personal name Aristotle will have been fixed initially by
some kind of naming ceremony (which, following Kripke, we may loosely
call a baptism). 13 Later, its reference is fixed by means such as identifying
Aristotle as the pupil of Plato, the teacher of Alexander the Great, the
philosopher born in Stagira, etc. Plato could have fixed the reference of
Aristotle for, say, Eudoxus by pointing out Aristotle and telling Eudoxus the
equivalent of That’s Aristotle. Not everyone will fix reference in the same
way, but the name holds for everyone for whom it identifies the same
referent. 14 This is so even when a person’s encyclopaedic information is
minimal, such that the reference of, say, Aristotle is merely ‘a historical
personage’. If that person has only this information about Plato, too, all that
keeps Aristotle distinct from Plato is the form of the name.
Many people have nicknames or familiar names in addition to their official
name. Michael alternates with Mike in different, though overlapping, sets of
contexts. A jazz buff will know that Bird refers to the same person as Charley
Parker. The stage name Bob Dylan identifies the same person as bears the
name Robert Zimmerman, and Marilyn Monroe the same person as bore the
name Norma Jean Baker; the alternative names are mostly used in different
contexts. Judgments about the appropriateness of names are judgments of
semantic and pragmatic acceptability arising from the connotations of the
names. For example, Mike and Michael can have the same reference but
different connotations.
In every community, most personal names distinguish first the sex then the
gender of the name-bearer; transsexuals almost invariably change their name to
fit their target gender. Life would be tough for a boy named Sue; it was tough
for the American who had his name changed to One Zero Six Nine – he had to
go to four courts in two states before he found a sympathetic judge; and even
then he was required to spell the numbers and not use numerals. 15 Across
different cultures, certain naming practices can be seen to differentiate between
girls and boys. Girls get flower names like Rose, Violet, and in Mongolian
Narantsetseg ‘sunflower’, Odval ‘chrysanthemum’; boys don’t. Instead, they
get names like Dirk, and in Mongolian Bat ‘strong’, Sukh ‘axe’. 16 Chinese boys
may be named ming 3 ‘bright, brilliant, light’, qiang ‘strong, powerful’ or
li 4 ‘strength’, and their sister li ‘beautiful’, yue 4 ‘moon, month’,
mei 2 ‘beautiful’, mei 2 ‘plum blossom’, mei ‘rose’. 17 And just as
John is an unsuitable name for your new-born daughter, so is Springtime in
Paris an inappropriate name for a 1200cc Harley-Davidson motorbike or an
auto-repair shop. Wheels and Deals might be a good name for a used car mart,
but not for a new strain of corn, nor for a maternity boutique. People are well
aware of these facts: the proper names of car models, rock bands, beauty salons,