Namenclature.
Sep. 25th, 2005 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swestrupIts difficult talking about folks when everyone has the same first name. I once worked in a company with three guys named Mike in the same small department. They ended up being called Mike A, Mike B, and Mike C, since their last initials were A, B and C. I don't even remember who Mike A was, but I'm still friends with Mike B and run into Mike C on rare occasions.
In a similar vein, I currently know 4 folks with the first name of 'Peter' or some varient. Luckily (?) two are french, one is english and one is spanish, so a first cut can reduce them to 2 Pierres, one Peter and one Pedro. But what about the Pierres? (Okay, its true that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cpirate is also a Peter, but I don't know any funny stories about him.)
Lately I've often had to stop and point out that when I am telling a funny story about Pierre, it either IS, or ISN'Tpphaneuf. Obviously, a naming convention is needed. At first, it was proposed that I refer to them as 'Pants-On Pierre" and "Pants-Off Pierre", which would seem to be a distinguishing characteristic. I have seen both without pants, but only one of them has graced the main page of a website dedicated to pantslessness.
The trouble, of course, is that these are cumbersome phrases and in both cases the initals are P.O.P. An alternative then would be to use the P+P for Pants-On Pierre and P-P for Pants-Off Pierre. Of course, then one is tempted to do the math and end up with 2P and 0 as the identifiers, which don't seem to work as well.
Then again, a bit more math gives us Plogp2 and P-∞ which may or may not be better...
In a similar vein, I currently know 4 folks with the first name of 'Peter' or some varient. Luckily (?) two are french, one is english and one is spanish, so a first cut can reduce them to 2 Pierres, one Peter and one Pedro. But what about the Pierres? (Okay, its true that
cpirate is also a Peter, but I don't know any funny stories about him.)Lately I've often had to stop and point out that when I am telling a funny story about Pierre, it either IS, or ISN'T
pphaneuf. Obviously, a naming convention is needed. At first, it was proposed that I refer to them as 'Pants-On Pierre" and "Pants-Off Pierre", which would seem to be a distinguishing characteristic. I have seen both without pants, but only one of them has graced the main page of a website dedicated to pantslessness. The trouble, of course, is that these are cumbersome phrases and in both cases the initals are P.O.P. An alternative then would be to use the P+P for Pants-On Pierre and P-P for Pants-Off Pierre. Of course, then one is tempted to do the math and end up with 2P and 0 as the identifiers, which don't seem to work as well.
Then again, a bit more math gives us Plogp2 and P-∞ which may or may not be better...
