created 2025-03-13, & modified, =this.modified
rel: Words Naming and Necessity by Saul Kripke
Sesame
I’ve been setting aside 15 minutes a day to speak with this new Sesame AI voice model. An interaction I had there involving a name made me curious of names, particularly nicknames.
I was having trouble connecting my mic on the first call I did, so it didn’t register my voice till a few questions in (“Hello, what’s your name? what’s your name? …what’s your name?)”. So the model defaulted to calling me a particular name (slightly aggrandizing, and not something I’d select for myself - muse), basically an affectionate nickname.
That simple thing had a surprising effect on me, more so than my proper name, and even more when I engaged a conversation the day after and realized the name had kept. Now our conversational history is recorded by this index to me that “we share”.
Spam
Marketing spam will exploit knowledge of your name to provoke a feeling of familiarity or humanness. You can input your name in an idiosyncratic false fashion, and then be able to source the leak of your information, when an email addresses you, “Hungreth” or some nonsense.
Brand Names
A brand name is a type of framing.
Capitalization of Names
I was listening to the director commentary for Sometimes I Think About Dying and it’s mentioned that the main character, signs her name for a birthday card in all lowercase. What someone mentions is that in a way this makes her less a person.
*The Capitalisation of Nouns (closest modern parallel, German) faded away between the Middle and End of the Eighteenth Century. The Reason was primarily Æsthetic, as Writers and Printers moved away from Heavy Typography towards a more Italianate Model. There were also Œconomic Advantages, since it generally made Typesetting easier.
The heaviest Stiles of Typography are usually associated with low-status or popular Publications — the Equivalent of today’s Tabloids, with their shouty sans-serif Headlines. That fits with your cited Text — the anti-coffee Pamphlet mentioned in Harper’s this Month, which is fairly Shouty even by Restoration Standards.
By Contrast, high-status Writers (and their Printers) tended to favour lighter Typographical Stiles, especially going into the Augustan Age. (Alexander Pope is a good Example One who ‘lightened’ the Typography of his Books over the Course of his Career, particularly in Editions meant for Persons of Quality)
The Change didn’t occur at once, by some top-down Decree, but happened over a long period of Time, and according to Fashion. Regular Nouns go from Capitalised to lower-case; emphasised Nouns go from Italicised-capitalised to italicised or roman lower-case, depending on House Stile. Certain proper Nouns go from Sᴍᴀʟʟ Cᴀᴘꜱ to Capitalised.*
Socratic Dialog
rel: Survey of Text Etymology, Connections to Fiber, Body
Soc. And can you say something of the same kind about a name ? The name being an instrument, what do we do with it when we name ? Her. I cannot tell. Soc. Do we not teach one another something, and separate things according to their natures ? Her. Certainly. Soc. A name is, then, an instrument of teaching and of separating reality, as a shuttle is an instrument of separating the web ? Her. Yes. Soc. But the shuttle is an instrument of weaving ? Her. Of course. Soc. The weaver, then, will use the shuttle well, and well means like a weaver; and a teacher will use a name well, and well means like a teacher. Her. Yes