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Name mashing
Aug. 2nd, 2006 01:00 pmToday, I take a moment to speak out against the abuse of sound and language which has come to be known as name-mashing.
While it's difficult to say whether this is entirely an import practice or convergent evolution, its use in fandom appears to owe a good deal to the cross-pollenation of domestic media fandoms and anime/manga fandoms. And, like many such, it makes perfect sense in its home context and clunks like an X car in its new environment.
Japanese language has developed a habit of word and name shortening, especially where public personalities and fandom pairings are concerned. Personal computer becomes pasacom; Minagawa Junko becomes MinaJun; the pairing of Tezuka and Atobe becomes TezuAto. And this works just fine in Japanese, because Japanese words, with very few exceptions, are comprised of consonant-vowel pairs. When you pick out the first one or two of these from two different words and push them together to make a new 'word' it generally works out.
Alas, this cannot be said of English, which has a far more irregular distribution of closed and open sounds in its texture. On top of that, name mashing in English based fandoms has a far stronger tendency to take the first part of one name and the whole later part of the other. Thus you wind up with Snarry, which sounds like something that belongs in a drum set or possibly in the woods catching rabbits, and Yuffentine, which both sounds ridiculous and seems to miss the whole "shortening" part of the thing. Even when first parts are used together, the English language offers little assurance that the result will be euphonious. Take, for example, Cloti, which sounds distressingly like a new venereal disease. Or McShep, which makes me think a fast food chain has expanded its product line into mutton. Surely everyone wants better associations with their preferred pairings. Or at least names you can say without laughing; is there anyone who can actually say Beniffer without snickering?
I mean, really, people. Think of the children!
Actually, yes, do think of the children. Think of the impressionable young fans who enter fandom and find these audial caltrops scattered about, and enthusiastically take up the practice in order to show that they belong. Think of this practice spreading and universalizing, and inflicting on us all yet more pairing nicknames that sound like someone playing syllabic Mad Libs.
Honestly, what's wrong with Kirk/Spock? Instead of, say, Kipock...
While it's difficult to say whether this is entirely an import practice or convergent evolution, its use in fandom appears to owe a good deal to the cross-pollenation of domestic media fandoms and anime/manga fandoms. And, like many such, it makes perfect sense in its home context and clunks like an X car in its new environment.
Japanese language has developed a habit of word and name shortening, especially where public personalities and fandom pairings are concerned. Personal computer becomes pasacom; Minagawa Junko becomes MinaJun; the pairing of Tezuka and Atobe becomes TezuAto. And this works just fine in Japanese, because Japanese words, with very few exceptions, are comprised of consonant-vowel pairs. When you pick out the first one or two of these from two different words and push them together to make a new 'word' it generally works out.
Alas, this cannot be said of English, which has a far more irregular distribution of closed and open sounds in its texture. On top of that, name mashing in English based fandoms has a far stronger tendency to take the first part of one name and the whole later part of the other. Thus you wind up with Snarry, which sounds like something that belongs in a drum set or possibly in the woods catching rabbits, and Yuffentine, which both sounds ridiculous and seems to miss the whole "shortening" part of the thing. Even when first parts are used together, the English language offers little assurance that the result will be euphonious. Take, for example, Cloti, which sounds distressingly like a new venereal disease. Or McShep, which makes me think a fast food chain has expanded its product line into mutton. Surely everyone wants better associations with their preferred pairings. Or at least names you can say without laughing; is there anyone who can actually say Beniffer without snickering?
I mean, really, people. Think of the children!
Actually, yes, do think of the children. Think of the impressionable young fans who enter fandom and find these audial caltrops scattered about, and enthusiastically take up the practice in order to show that they belong. Think of this practice spreading and universalizing, and inflicting on us all yet more pairing nicknames that sound like someone playing syllabic Mad Libs.
Honestly, what's wrong with Kirk/Spock? Instead of, say, Kipock...
