Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Why this is Wordville

The regulars at Elizabeth Large’s restaurant blog, Dining @ Large, refer to themselves collectively as the Sandbox. Not everyone is happy with the term, and Ms. Large opened up a discussion of the subject today.

The responses so far overwhelmingly endorse the name, in part because it was first applied to the group by the late Robert (the Single One), whose memory the group honors in deep affection.

But the compelling reason to accept the name is that it is in the nature of nicknames to arise spontaneously and stick. Contrived names just don’t seem to work A couple of years ago, the expenditure of half a million dollars on a project to generate a new municipal slogan for Baltimore yielded this: Baltimore: Get in on it! (The public’s responses to current statistics about the murder rate and articles about muggings by bands of unruly youths suggest that a more resonant slogan would be Baltimore: Give up on It.) Like a previous slogan, The City that Reads, Baltimore: Get in on It! was subjected to widespread ridicule before dropping out of active memory.

Last year, when this blog was still as Baltimoresun.com, I shamelessly attempted to mimic Ms. Large’s blog by soliciting nicknames for You Don’t Say. Something shy of a flood of suggestions yielded a mild plurality in favor of the Parlor or Parlour, reflecting the refined (i.e., stuffy) discourse here. It never caught on. Then one day a Sandboxer mentioned having been over at Wordville, and the name seemed exactly right and has been current ever since.

You would be well advised to be suspicious of campaigns to name zoo animals or come up with slogans or anything of the sort.

A final note: As Sandboxers have comments Robert (the Single One)’s coinage came as a reminder to behave well in the sandbox. The word fits because the community of readers that has developed in Ms. Large’s blog is self-policing. People who are abusive or unpleasant are met immediately with gentle but firm reproof from the Sandboxers, and, finding the place inhospitable to venom, they go away and do not return. Names stick when they fit.

13 comments:

  1. It was the last Robert, the Single One (RtSO) who came up with the term "The Sandbox." The unlate Robert of Cross Keys (RoCK) is the one who pointed out that it is an organic nickname, so we're stuck with it.

    The League of Roberts is legion.

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  2. It was the late Robert the Single One who facetiously mentioned it once and didn't like it as a nickname. Robert of Cross Keys, who has no nickname, lives on.

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  3. Back in Pennsylvania (I'm now in Santa Fe), I belonged a weekly luncheon group called Young Writers of America Inc. We were actually the second generation, the first having all but died off when I joined (and all are now dead). The moniker was ironic because the founders were not young, and most of those in the second generation were also of a certain age. So it was a treat when we added a 21-year-old to the group and could look at him and say: A real young writer. Alas, he moved on to a bigger newspaper job and my guess is that the irony still fits.

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  4. "Foodville" doesn't sound right, anyway.

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  5. Wordville is a catchy nickname, but every time I use it, I think of Dr. Seuss. Then my mind wanders off track and I wonder if the book should have correctly been, "Horton Hears A Whom".

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  6. Robert of Cross Keys does too have a nickname: RoCK!

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  7. Is it just me, or are there a number of out-of-the-ordinary mistakes in this post?

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  8. So...is it part of blogging etiquette to have a nickname for a group? Or is it just cool?

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  9. Robert of Cross KeysJune 3, 2009 at 6:39 PM

    If I'm dead, I have just one question: who has been sleeping with my wife?

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  10. I don't recall what was spent on the state of Washington's tourism motto, but it got heads scratching: Say WA!

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  11. My apologies to Robert of Cross Keys for the slip. I was, obviously, a little distracted, and wound up having to leave for a job interview before I could make necessary fixes in the post. Thank you, as always, for bringing prompt attention to my errors.

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  12. Thank you JMc for the "gentle but firm reproof" you recently posted on my behalf.

    I enjoyed your reply to my post, too, but was a little too bummed to reply at the time.

    And I hate the term Sandbox myself, but I can see why others are attached to it. Wordville is way cooler. I guess Bucky saves his best for you. :)

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