A good dog name has two syllables with vowels at the end. Preferably something percussive in the middle, but Larry will do. Something short and easy for the dog to recognize and respond automatically. (I prefer Buddy for all unknown dogs as well as children).
I don’t have a dog. But I read a lot, and I read a long article about dog names once. Cats don’t care what we call them. I don’t have one of them either.
I do have a lot of uninformed opinions on this topic. And time on my hands. So here we are.
Once upon a time there was a swarm of bees in search of a place to make a new hive, a new home. In their travels north of the US-Canada border, the bees needed to answer the call of nature. All the bees, save one, headed to a B-P station. The one bee skipped the line and went to an Esso station. The moral of the story is that in every crowd there is at least one Esso bee.
Except for the late singer and actress Lari White (recorded the top-5 country hit "Now I Know" and appeared as a beacon of hope to Tom Hanks at the very end of "Cast Away," if you are wondering who Lari White was). Definitely not a dog, but answered to "Larry" all the time. Besides, names aren't as rigidly gendered as they used to be.
Animals don't speak human languages (e.g. Trump), so it's important to give them names you enjoy. That's why I voted for "Battleship Potemkin" (intending no definite article). A college roommate had a black cat named "Henry", so years later, when I acquired a black cat, I considered naming him "Henry II" (as in Eleanor of Acquitaine's husband), but a witty friend had the far better suggestion of "Henri Quatre", and so he became (but "Henry" to his friends). Further years later, we acquired another Maine Coon Cat, as Henri Quatre had been, gray rather than black, but otherwise a twin. I reflected that Henry IV of England had a bastard half-brother, Henry, Cardinal Beaufort--so that became the full name of the new cat, generally known as Beaufort (and pronounced as in North Carolina, not South Carolina).
We had a dog named Henry. He was a stray who turned up on campus and my friend named him for the dean of our music school. My folks let me keep him. He was only partly socialized, was afraid of men and aggressive towards laundry on the line. We think a neighbor did him in but we never knew for sure. RIP Henry. You tried to be a good dog.
Larry, by far. I used to name all my cats Ralph, including a pair of siblings. However, Laura S is correct—despite what TS Eliot would like you to believe, cats don't care. All cats are actually named pssspssspsss.
While I appreciate the laudable support for the name Larry, we Larrys would prefer that a few more human offspring be given the name. This is not to disparage the names Hortense, Porkchop or the Battleship Potemkin for some lucky infant - but we Larrys are dying off, and in fact are on the endangered specious list. So please do not waste a Larry on a pet - and give them proper names like Porkchop, Hortense, Daisy, or Rex. Thank you.
You’re right, I know plenty of older Lawrences/Larrys but no youngsters. This is a good name for all, however, imho, as it may inspire parents everywhere to rethink their choices.
My much-loved brother in law's name was Larry. I would never name a pet after him. There is a 5-year-old Larry down the street from me, which brings me joy. They are a Chinese family; how they settled on "Larry" is a mystery to me.
I actually hadn't grasped that the idiotic "thoughtful, provocative, new to me [etc]" opinion buttons were meant to refer to the piece rather than the comment itself (à la "like" and "reply"). It's also the case that I stopped going to the comments at all once that horrible innovation was unveiled. It's hard to imagine a worse approach, except for the inadvertent comedy aspect noted above.
The idiotic "Clarifying" "New to me," "Provocative" and "Thoughtful"opinion buttons refer to the PIECE, and not the comments? I've been dealing with the "updated" comments section since they began it, and all my replies have been about the comments, since the word "Reply" and the choices ("Clarifying" "New to me," "Provocative" "Thoughtful") appear after each comment. True, people are usually commenting about the piece, but they're also commenting about others' comments as well. And sometimes you'd like to be able to simply click a "Like" icon about someone's post --rather than replying with a comment THAT HAS TO BE AT LEAST 25 CHARACTERS, according to the rules.
Some of us have resorted to posting a reply that says AGREE, followed by 20 exclamation points.
Update: I just checked a Post article, and next to the AI summary of the comments is info such as: "10 readers found this comment 'clarifying,'" etc. So those adjectives are indeed for the comments, not for the articles.
Well that's what I'd thought too, but something in Gene's commentary (I think it was, am too lazy to go back to try to figure it out) gave me the impression that those moronic choices were meant to apply to the article rather than the comment. Which, I agree, makes little sense, but then none of this new system makes any sense at all to me, so I just stopped looking at it. I hadn't realized about the 25-character rule, which is even stupider and less senseful. Your agree+exclamation points response seems like a reasonable approach to a totally unreasonable system.
Notice the kludge formerly known as comments at the WaPo has a space for "Ignored Commenters." As far as I can tell from comments on the change, that includes just about all of us. But, finally groked what must be the new WaPo master plan. Guess a large part of it is to make everything an "experience:" no longer simply news, opinion or heaven forfend, simply comments. The idea apparently is that by the time you experience trying to figure out how to experience the "experience," you'll be pissed off enough to cancel your subscription. This will then lead to further cost reductions with the removal of the remaining two humans in the subscription and customer service departments, to say nothing of the near humans in the newsroom. As the Wise Man of the Bronx indicated, new management did it because they could. The least they could do is come up with comment "reaction" buttons that reflect human expression. I suggest some like:
(1) Better than a sharp stick in the eye, but not much
I don't object to the AI comments, because I don't read them. This is because I don't care what computers say; I read only words of humans.
I do object to the choices, "Thoughtful," "Provocative," "New to me," and "Clarifying" (though the Post has them in the reverse order). This is because none of those choices often describes my reaction to a comment. I would generally want to click that I like a comment because I agree with it or because I think that it's well put. But the Post doesn't require you to choose one of its four options in order to reply to a comment.
Comments? I got plenty of comments. But for now, they will stay with my local newspaper, Frederick News Post and not for the Washington paper. I honestly tried to respond to its new requirements and in fact they were much like my responding to Amazon. When I got to a place to state my case, they gave me a few choices and nothing worked. So, I just gave it up. As I do now with the Post. My priceless prose is like pearls to swine. Or as Robert Heinlein said: "Never try to teach a pig to sing..."
Dogs don't care what you call them, anymore than cats care, so long as you don't call them late for dinner. That doesn't mean you should name your dog or cat Hitler or Beelzebub or Putin or Trump. Dogs and cats didn't put the country in this situation. 76 million dumb-ass mofos did. The other 1 million are rich people who will benefit from Il Douche's tax cuts.
The breathtakingly awful AI comment format is what finally drove me to cancel my WaPo subscription. I'm enjoying my last few days posting blatant hate posts on every story to screw with their algorithms.
The Post’s new “feature” debuted just before my subscription ended, so I had little experience with it. But the little I saw was more confusing than anything. Personally, I dislike the whole “like” button thing that even Substack uses. But the choices that the Post gave were just nonsensical.
A good dog name has two syllables with vowels at the end. Preferably something percussive in the middle, but Larry will do. Something short and easy for the dog to recognize and respond automatically. (I prefer Buddy for all unknown dogs as well as children).
I don’t have a dog. But I read a lot, and I read a long article about dog names once. Cats don’t care what we call them. I don’t have one of them either.
I do have a lot of uninformed opinions on this topic. And time on my hands. So here we are.
The Battleship Potemkin is easily rendered as BP (bee-pee); a good name for a dog.
Once upon a time there was a swarm of bees in search of a place to make a new hive, a new home. In their travels north of the US-Canada border, the bees needed to answer the call of nature. All the bees, save one, headed to a B-P station. The one bee skipped the line and went to an Esso station. The moral of the story is that in every crowd there is at least one Esso bee.
I picked porkchop because I read that consonants help them recognize their name. Besides, Larry only works for a male.
Except for the late singer and actress Lari White (recorded the top-5 country hit "Now I Know" and appeared as a beacon of hope to Tom Hanks at the very end of "Cast Away," if you are wondering who Lari White was). Definitely not a dog, but answered to "Larry" all the time. Besides, names aren't as rigidly gendered as they used to be.
Animals don't speak human languages (e.g. Trump), so it's important to give them names you enjoy. That's why I voted for "Battleship Potemkin" (intending no definite article). A college roommate had a black cat named "Henry", so years later, when I acquired a black cat, I considered naming him "Henry II" (as in Eleanor of Acquitaine's husband), but a witty friend had the far better suggestion of "Henri Quatre", and so he became (but "Henry" to his friends). Further years later, we acquired another Maine Coon Cat, as Henri Quatre had been, gray rather than black, but otherwise a twin. I reflected that Henry IV of England had a bastard half-brother, Henry, Cardinal Beaufort--so that became the full name of the new cat, generally known as Beaufort (and pronounced as in North Carolina, not South Carolina).
We had a dog named Henry. He was a stray who turned up on campus and my friend named him for the dean of our music school. My folks let me keep him. He was only partly socialized, was afraid of men and aggressive towards laundry on the line. We think a neighbor did him in but we never knew for sure. RIP Henry. You tried to be a good dog.
I enjoyed receiving an automatic email with the subject line "Response to Ticket #[4120374] Re: New comments layout sucks ass."
Larry and Porkchop for dogs, Hortense for a cat, The Battleship Potemkin for a massive cat, Widowmaker for a guinea pig.
I like this.
Larry, by far. I used to name all my cats Ralph, including a pair of siblings. However, Laura S is correct—despite what TS Eliot would like you to believe, cats don't care. All cats are actually named pssspssspsss.
While I appreciate the laudable support for the name Larry, we Larrys would prefer that a few more human offspring be given the name. This is not to disparage the names Hortense, Porkchop or the Battleship Potemkin for some lucky infant - but we Larrys are dying off, and in fact are on the endangered specious list. So please do not waste a Larry on a pet - and give them proper names like Porkchop, Hortense, Daisy, or Rex. Thank you.
AMEN!
You’re right, I know plenty of older Lawrences/Larrys but no youngsters. This is a good name for all, however, imho, as it may inspire parents everywhere to rethink their choices.
My much-loved brother in law's name was Larry. I would never name a pet after him. There is a 5-year-old Larry down the street from me, which brings me joy. They are a Chinese family; how they settled on "Larry" is a mystery to me.
I actually hadn't grasped that the idiotic "thoughtful, provocative, new to me [etc]" opinion buttons were meant to refer to the piece rather than the comment itself (à la "like" and "reply"). It's also the case that I stopped going to the comments at all once that horrible innovation was unveiled. It's hard to imagine a worse approach, except for the inadvertent comedy aspect noted above.
As for pet names, obviously Hortense is the best.
I did think your vote might be weighted accordingly.
The nom de guerre Hortense is in fact my cat's name.
(My real name is Porkchop.)
Nice to meet you. My friends call me “psspssspsss”
The idiotic "Clarifying" "New to me," "Provocative" and "Thoughtful"opinion buttons refer to the PIECE, and not the comments? I've been dealing with the "updated" comments section since they began it, and all my replies have been about the comments, since the word "Reply" and the choices ("Clarifying" "New to me," "Provocative" "Thoughtful") appear after each comment. True, people are usually commenting about the piece, but they're also commenting about others' comments as well. And sometimes you'd like to be able to simply click a "Like" icon about someone's post --rather than replying with a comment THAT HAS TO BE AT LEAST 25 CHARACTERS, according to the rules.
Some of us have resorted to posting a reply that says AGREE, followed by 20 exclamation points.
Update: I just checked a Post article, and next to the AI summary of the comments is info such as: "10 readers found this comment 'clarifying,'" etc. So those adjectives are indeed for the comments, not for the articles.
Well that's what I'd thought too, but something in Gene's commentary (I think it was, am too lazy to go back to try to figure it out) gave me the impression that those moronic choices were meant to apply to the article rather than the comment. Which, I agree, makes little sense, but then none of this new system makes any sense at all to me, so I just stopped looking at it. I hadn't realized about the 25-character rule, which is even stupider and less senseful. Your agree+exclamation points response seems like a reasonable approach to a totally unreasonable system.
Notice the kludge formerly known as comments at the WaPo has a space for "Ignored Commenters." As far as I can tell from comments on the change, that includes just about all of us. But, finally groked what must be the new WaPo master plan. Guess a large part of it is to make everything an "experience:" no longer simply news, opinion or heaven forfend, simply comments. The idea apparently is that by the time you experience trying to figure out how to experience the "experience," you'll be pissed off enough to cancel your subscription. This will then lead to further cost reductions with the removal of the remaining two humans in the subscription and customer service departments, to say nothing of the near humans in the newsroom. As the Wise Man of the Bronx indicated, new management did it because they could. The least they could do is come up with comment "reaction" buttons that reflect human expression. I suggest some like:
(1) Better than a sharp stick in the eye, but not much
(2) A good substitute for celibacy
(3) Nice to see ESOL catching on
(4) Gag me with a tongue depressor
(5) Seek help. Immediately
(6) Can't unsee this
(7) Are you out of your effin' mind?!
You omitted the classic New Yorker response.
I have corrected that inadvertent oversight.
I don't object to the AI comments, because I don't read them. This is because I don't care what computers say; I read only words of humans.
I do object to the choices, "Thoughtful," "Provocative," "New to me," and "Clarifying" (though the Post has them in the reverse order). This is because none of those choices often describes my reaction to a comment. I would generally want to click that I like a comment because I agree with it or because I think that it's well put. But the Post doesn't require you to choose one of its four options in order to reply to a comment.
I check all four. I hope it breaks the computer if enough people do that.
I must noticed that one commenter has a name that the Post AI hasn't caught yet:
Haywouldya Blomee
Well done, sir!
I believe I have met a relative of his, Heywood Yablomi.
As the owner of a reactive dog who daily enters the outdoors with guns blazing, I will now be calling her The Battleship Potemkin. Thank you.
Right on! I pictured a Newfie hitting the snow!
Well, she be little but she be fierce. And she does have some Caucasian shepherd in her (she's a former street dog from Tbilisi, Georgia).
That syncs nicely with the name!
Comments? I got plenty of comments. But for now, they will stay with my local newspaper, Frederick News Post and not for the Washington paper. I honestly tried to respond to its new requirements and in fact they were much like my responding to Amazon. When I got to a place to state my case, they gave me a few choices and nothing worked. So, I just gave it up. As I do now with the Post. My priceless prose is like pearls to swine. Or as Robert Heinlein said: "Never try to teach a pig to sing..."
Dogs don't care what you call them, anymore than cats care, so long as you don't call them late for dinner. That doesn't mean you should name your dog or cat Hitler or Beelzebub or Putin or Trump. Dogs and cats didn't put the country in this situation. 76 million dumb-ass mofos did. The other 1 million are rich people who will benefit from Il Douche's tax cuts.
Dogs may not care what you call them, but please don’t take your dog named “Shark” to the beach!
As I feared, my name won the dog contest. I voted for "Pork chop" BTW.
The breathtakingly awful AI comment format is what finally drove me to cancel my WaPo subscription. I'm enjoying my last few days posting blatant hate posts on every story to screw with their algorithms.
I think your tactic has the makings of an Invitational Contest. Pat? Gene?
Damn, upon reading the comments here, I feel as if I should stop spiling coffee on myself or even put on pants. I lurve it here!
Those would be good comment reaction button options! (8) spilled coffee on self (9) put on pants
Ha! Excellent.
Another good response button would be "Sploooottttt!!!"
Larry is the best on the list. Moe would be better. Best would be Curly, if the animal has short hair.
The Post’s new “feature” debuted just before my subscription ended, so I had little experience with it. But the little I saw was more confusing than anything. Personally, I dislike the whole “like” button thing that even Substack uses. But the choices that the Post gave were just nonsensical.