{"id":2794,"date":"2010-04-05T06:02:11","date_gmt":"2010-04-05T13:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/?p=2794"},"modified":"2010-04-05T09:55:38","modified_gmt":"2010-04-05T16:55:38","slug":"name-calling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/05\/name-calling\/","title":{"rendered":"Name Calling"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>‘When you talk to them about the mooring fees, I wouldn’t mention the fact that you’re changing her name’ said Nick, my sailing mentor and the friend whose house I was redo-ing in exchange for him buying me a boat, ‘they’re an odd bunch, sailors’.<\/p>\n

But we knew this, right? I mean, in my 5 times sailing, I’d already committed to memory some of their quirks:<\/p>\n

– No bananas
\n– No menstruating women
\n– No using your left hand unless your right hand is occupied
\n– No green plants
\n– No whistling
\n– No black traveling bags<\/p>\n

… and the list goes on.<\/p>\n

And even re-naming a boat being bad luck made sense – the stripping of it’s identity, disregard for it’s birth, more paperwork for the easily irritable Poseidon – but it was something that had to be done.<\/p>\n

I wasn’t about to start my lifelong dream of having a sailboat of my own, one I could take on adventures and live on – to a vessel called ‘Elver’.<\/p>\n

Horrible, right?<\/p>\n

Elver.<\/em><\/p>\n

Even in the English Accent it sounds, well, gross. No, not gross – stupid. Yes, that’s the word I’m looking for.<\/p>\n

‘It has a great meaning’ said the man on the phone, the man who I would buy the boat from, the man who Christened her this title of ridiculousness, the man who heard my long exhale on the other line, ‘it’s the journey a baby eel takes up the water’.<\/p>\n

Fuckery. That’s what this was – absolute fuckery. An uncomfortable name representing a slimy frightening sea creature of the deep now hiding behind the world sanction that it’s becoming extinct?<\/p>\n

Bad luck be damned – I wasn’t going to live in a place called, or meaning, that.<\/em><\/p>\n

So, the uncomfortable situation of letting Nick, and my few sailor friends, know of my plan.<\/p>\n

None thought it a good idea, but they’re British and known for their uptightedness. I, however, am American – and we’re known for disregarding all rules and re-making them to suit ourselves.<\/p>\n

Which I did.<\/p>\n

Never mind the odd ceremonies listed online, the poems and gifts for the sea gods – the only thing I’ll take from hours of research is the fact that no two names should exist on the re-named yacht, which makes sense to me. Her transom wasn’t painted [and what painter in their right mind would?], which makes things much easier, and if I can acquire my college degree from a site called PhonyDiploma.com, then I think I’ll be able to procure online any new paperwork needed.<\/p>\n

Basically, to hell with tradition – the Titanic [which left from the same port we will this weekend in bringing her back] had only one name, right? And I would think a happy boat is the most important thing. I mean, let’s say you were given the handle something ridiculous like…oh, let’s see: Keith – wait, no… Kenny<\/em>. Let’s say you were given that name and on your 14th birthday, you were sold to a nicer family who thought to call you Alexander. You’d be happier, they’d probably not return you and everyone lives better, right?<\/p>\n

Right.<\/p>\n

So there you go – centuries of sailing customs completely disregarded by someone who’s never properly sailed himself.<\/p>\n

It’ll be fine…<\/p>\n

Right?<\/p>\n

Aric S. Queen<\/a> does a lot of things decent – but very few things well. He likes potatoes and doesn’t care much for tall people. He lives on a boat.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘When you talk to them about the mooring fees, I wouldn’t mention the fact that you’re changing her name’ said Nick, my sailing mentor and the friend whose house I was redo-ing in exchange for him buying me a boat, ‘they’re an odd bunch, sailors’. But we knew this, right? I mean, in my 5 … <\/p>\n


…read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[706],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-29-guests","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2794"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2841,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2794\/revisions\/2841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}