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<h1 id="naming-the-future">Naming the Future</h1>
<ul class="post-metadata">
<li><time datetime="2004-05-30">30 May 2004</time></li>
<li><a href="/tags/mediacommons/" class="post-tag">mediacommons</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Well, the site renovations seem pretty much in hand — things are basically working (though you should let me know if you find something that isnt), and the redirects and 404s are doing their respective jobs.</p>
<p>So, given that, like <a href="http://ghw.wordherders.net/archives/002004.html">George</a>, Ive got a big list of stuff to do this summer, its back to work for me.</p>
<p>One such project, which I imagine will take some time, is the start-up of the <a href="/on_the_future_of_academic_publishing/">new online scholarly imprint</a> Ive been <a href="/mediacommons/">talking about here</a> for a while now. And the two initial tasks in that start-up, I think, are naming an editorial board, and naming the thing itself.</p>
<p>Ive decided that, while MediaCommons and MediaTexts have much to recommend them, neither quite does what Im hoping for; each is, in a weird way, too specific. As Im hoping that the new thing will evolve into something as-yet unimaginable, I dont want to saddle it with a name that seems to rein in its future, circumscribing its range.</p>
<p>Ive spent some time over the last few weeks contemplating names, and particularly software names, trying to figure out why I like the ones I like, and why the others leave me cold. After a fair bit of thought, Ive determined that my favorite such name remains <a href="http://www.eudora.com">Eudora</a>, which has both an admirable simplicity and a impressive depth of reference, and which has in some mysterious way passed into the computing vernacular, seeming as obvious a choice as “Mail.” (No offense, <a href="http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/mail/">Steve</a>.) Thats the kind of name I want — something evocative and non-literal but simple. (And something for which the domain is available.)</p>
<p>It may be that Im too concerned with this naming thing. A creative writing prof of mine once argued in class that a title was unimportant, nothing more than a handle with which one could pick up a text and carry it around. I disagreed then, and I disagree now; as Pynchon has it in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140188592/plannedobsole-20">Gravitys Rainbow</a>, “names by themselves may have no magic, but the act of naming, the physical utterance, obeys the pattern.” I cant help but feel that the name is key, that the act of naming can determine the things future.</p>
<p>So what are your favorite names — of software packages, of websites, of organizations? And why? What principles at work in those names might I learn from here?</p>
<ul class="links-nextprev"><li class="links-nextprev-prev">← Previous<br> <a href="/stage-2-complete/">Stage 2, Complete</a></li><li class="links-nextprev-next">Next →<br><a href="/why-so-long-as-i-live-neither-i-nor-any-of-mine-will-ever-purchase-a-sony-product-again/">Why, So Long As I Live, Neither I Nor Any of Mine Will Ever Purchase a Sony Product Again</a></li>
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