speaking of pet names, as sprig5 has been, ...

[fflo]

I've decided Humphrey's full name is Chester Humphrey K. Gallumphry. And the first name of all my cats, henceforth, shall be "Chester."

I could even abbreviate it "Ch.", as the dog-breedy types do for "Champion."

Haven't decided yet if I'm retrofitting Chet with a pre-"Chester" "Chester."

Orville Orville Orville.

Comments

The Naming of Cats

[kohkae.livejournal.com]

Maybe an honorary title.....
Chester the Chester K. Pester
Sir Chester K. Pester
Chester K. Pester, the Definitive Chester
But of course only Chester knows what his real name is...


The Naming of Cats - T.S. Eliot

The naming of cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm mad as a hatter
When I tell you a cat must have three
different names.

First of all, there's the name
that the family use daily,
Such as Victor, or Jonathan,
George or Bill Bailey--
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names
if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen,
some for the dames;
Such as Plato, Admetus,
Electra, Demeter--
But all of them sensible everyday names.

But I tell you,
a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that is peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he
keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers,
or cherish his pride?

Of names of this kind,
I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quazo or Coripat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellyrum--
Names that never belong
to more than one cat.

But above and beyond
there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you will never guess;
The name
that no human research can discover--
But The Cat Himself Knows,
and will never confess.

When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought,
of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

Re: The Naming of Cats

[fflo.livejournal.com]

One of the most touching cat-name-related stories I know is of friends who were observing/mourning the passing of one of their most dear-heart feline domestic partners by recalling and speaking aloud, at turns as they lay in bed, nicknames they'd used with the creature. You can imagine: there were many, and they came quickly, and less quickly, and some near-forgotten & long dormant. The scene could be a grand one in a movie, I'm thinking now, as long as the film handled its context with the lightest of touches.

Why it is that cats get so many more nicknames than dogs must have something to do with that inscrutability, leading to that ineffability. Dogs, sure, get nicknames, but they're like more like us that way. Scrutable. No need, it seems, for dozens of alternative names to suit the way the being seems at the moment, and the way we're feeling for & about it. It'd even be odd, somehow, to do that with the dog, you know?

Thanks for the poem, btw.