If I want to get myself good and sad, all I have to do is read reports on the internet about gifted children. Yeah, I was off-the-mf-charts gifted in my day. Some ridiculously high IQ, early verbal acquisition, early reading skills, all added up to this current underachieving package you see today. I feel that my education was handled lazily, that I was bored in school, and that as much as C-Juana H.S. totally rocked it, I should have been allowed to graduate early and go to college at sixteen like I wanted to, but was blocked from doing so by my lazy mother and schoolteacher stepfather, who staunchly believes in the supremacy of public education and pretended to know about gifted education while not-so-secretly holding smart kids in contempt (another reason why he should not ever call me if/when he needs end-of-life care). I should just not read these things, but I am doing a little research into "alternatives to high school" for the little bro. He's only got two more years, but I'm thinking maybe taking the California equivalency exam and going to junior college might be a better route for him.
Bob and I attended the birthday party of a 4-year-old boy today. Being a member of the castrati, we don't get invites to kids b-day parties so much, so it was nice to revel with the kinder for a bit. I observed during the party that boys born during the early part of the 21st Century are given names more baroque than the Johnny/Timmy/Bobby names that SOME IMPROVISERS seem to assign child characters. NO ONE calls their son Timmy these days. It's not what America in the 2000s is about. Tanner! Elijah! Cameron! Kaden! get over here now! Children are given names that look good on business cards. Diminutives are not happening these days.
Posted by Zerd at October 13, 2007 04:57 PMThe baroque is back, baby, but diminutives will not be stopped. We have Owey and Ev, and there's Lew (Lewis), Cam (Cameron), etc. What gets me is all the old lady names on baby girls, the Lilys, Pearls, and Sophies. We probably would have gone with Sophie if Evan was equipped thusly.