Re: Minor Language Note

[nobody@neva.org (Neva Remailer)]

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Tim May wrote:
>>> While it was not Tim's intention to make Jim look like a criminal,
>>> the use of a defendent's full name is often used to connote
>>> criminality.
>>>
>>> Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wilkes Booth, John Wayne Gacy, Richard
>>> Milhous Nixon, William Jefferson Clinton... there are many
>>> examples.
>
>George Washington Carver, James Fennimore Cooper, Richard Dean
>Anderson, Clare Booth Luce, Robert Anton Wilson, Francis Scott Key,.....

We don't usually think of these people as defendants.

>(Sometimes people have three names, sometimes two names, popularly
>used.  Criminality has little to do with it. For example, Richard
>Speck, Charles Manson, John Walker, Aldrich Ames, Ted Kaczynski,
>Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols.  Most of them presumably have middle
>names.)

I did not say that the use of middle names was required for
defendants.

>Oh, and as to divining what Tim's "intention" was, this mindreading
>and psychoanalysis shtick is getting old.

My opening sentence was intended to be friendly.  It was supposed make
clear that it was not suggested that you thought Jim Bell was a
criminal.  Certainly that was obvious, but a little redundancy never
hurts.  It looks like the meaning didn't convey properly, so I'm sorry
if I seemed to be psychoanalyzing you.

It's generally considered courteous to call people by the name they
wish to be called.  Jim Bell seems to go by the name "Jim Bell".
(This would not hold if somebody makes an inappropriate request such
as asking to be addressed as "James Dalton Bell, Defender of the
Faith, God of Vengeance, and Lord of the Universe.")

Back to the original point, I believe that it's hard to find instances
in which two-named people are involuntarily converted to three-named
people when they are not charged with a crime.  Lee Oswald became "Lee
Harvey Oswald" after the Kennedy Assassination, for example.

I've also noticed that Wardens have a marked tendency to refer to
inmates on death row by their first name, even when speaking publicly.
As in, "Don's death was very upsetting as it was obviously very
painful."  (Paraphrased from a real example.)

I believe the wardens are expressing a few things with this name
choice.  One is that they have complete power over the inmate.
Teachers call children by their first names, and it seems to me that
there is an element of that here.  (Admittedly, this is a troubling
image.)

Monty Cantsin
Editor in Chief
Smile Magazine
http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html
http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm

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