Wednesday, March 31, 2010

I'm trying to find an unsearchable, anonymous way to blog about this.


I'm going to a conference in A Foreign Land later this year.

The program is online.

The program looks completely normal.


There is this one paper.

Well, the paper looks normal.

But the speaker's name...I'm just not sure.

Now, of course, there are many speakers whose names are outside of my usual frame of reference, since this conference is in a part of the world where I have never traveled and whose languages I do not know. That isn't the issue. This one name is different.

It consists of: A title (such as "Miss") + the name of a small, rather cute animal. It's a Wind in the Willows type name. Like "Miss Goldfish," only even cuter. And no, nobody else on the program has a title. They're all just firstname-lastname.

I have googled this name, and found articles authored by Miss Goldfish. So this can't be an error. Could it be that ze only has one name, and the title is there to indicate that it is a name? That's my best guess. And it's just [bad/good/adorable] luck that the name happens to be the word for a particular cute animal in English.

I am intrigued. The conference just got a lot more interesting. (Well, no, it already looked plenty interesting. But now I have a mystery to solve!)


Dr. Koshary said...

Here is how my mind works: You speak of a pseudonymous "Miss Goldfish." The first goldfish that comes to my mind is Cleo from Disney's version of "Pinocchio." So then I visualize "Miss Cleo" -- who, if I recall correctly, was one of those dial-a-psychics seen on daytime TV ads.

So now I have the bizarre image in mind that you're going to hear a bunko psychic speak at an academic conference.

I think I need more coffee.

moria said...

Cf. Randall McCleod, a.k.a. Random Cloud, Random Clod, Anna Mary Armygram, Claudia this or that, etc. Our profession is full of peculiar pseudonyms.