I warn you now, I have a horrible feeling that I've already written a post about this, but I can't find it so I'll write anyway...
It perplexes me, the human habit of personifying inanimate objects. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against it. I, myself, am guilty of personifying personal objects; my computer, for example, is sentimentally named Hammond. This concept even goes so far as to annoy me when my computer is referred to as anything other than "he" or "him".
I can remember, as a child, I was fond of naming things, having been an avid fan of cuddly toys. Thinking back, this probably the start of my habit. I would have rows of toys, and remember the names of ever last one of them. At one point, I even named our family car (a forest green Nissan Primera) "Evergreen" for, like the evergreen tree in the back garden, its colour never changed.
Even when it's not naming things, people still have an odd habit of referring to objects as if they were real. Take a computer crashing, for example: it would not be uncommon to hear someone uttering a light threat to the machine that if it didn't start working soon, it would find itself in a metallic pile outside the window.
I'm not sure why people tend to do this. Personally, if an object is special enough, like my computer for me, or maybe a diary for others, it requires a special title. A name feels befitting for the level of importance the object plays in your life. In my view, a name has to fit, however. Like a child, if a pre-chosen name doesn't fit them when they are first lain in your arms, then the chosen name must be sacrificed for something more appropriate. This same hypothesis must also be applied when naming objects.
Or is that just me?
It perplexes me, the human habit of personifying inanimate objects. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against it. I, myself, am guilty of personifying personal objects; my computer, for example, is sentimentally named Hammond. This concept even goes so far as to annoy me when my computer is referred to as anything other than "he" or "him".
I can remember, as a child, I was fond of naming things, having been an avid fan of cuddly toys. Thinking back, this probably the start of my habit. I would have rows of toys, and remember the names of ever last one of them. At one point, I even named our family car (a forest green Nissan Primera) "Evergreen" for, like the evergreen tree in the back garden, its colour never changed.
Even when it's not naming things, people still have an odd habit of referring to objects as if they were real. Take a computer crashing, for example: it would not be uncommon to hear someone uttering a light threat to the machine that if it didn't start working soon, it would find itself in a metallic pile outside the window.
I'm not sure why people tend to do this. Personally, if an object is special enough, like my computer for me, or maybe a diary for others, it requires a special title. A name feels befitting for the level of importance the object plays in your life. In my view, a name has to fit, however. Like a child, if a pre-chosen name doesn't fit them when they are first lain in your arms, then the chosen name must be sacrificed for something more appropriate. This same hypothesis must also be applied when naming objects.
Or is that just me?
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