What's in a name?

I mean, wouldn't a rose by any other name be as sweet? But then again... Would it? I mean, would giving somebody a dozen [something that you detest and possibly causes you to vomit] wouldn't be the same. Not by a long shot!

I'm not saying that calling a rose by any other name wouldn't forever brand that something with the idea of beauty, but in just the same way, calling a rose by the name that you now have-embedded-in-your-head-as-something-awful would forever stain the idea of a "rose."

I'm sure that most names you could get used to switching the word in language and call it something else, because you would eventually come to know that as the item itself. It all goes back to the Philosophy of Language (one of my favorite classes at BYU...) and the saying vs. the said.

For example, I used to call Stephanie "Sweet" as a nickname, and that worked well and didn't have any linguistic or metaphoric conflicts. I was simply calling her by a name that embodied how I felt about her. However, I doubt that calling her a name that you might hear in an elementary or Jr. High school would have meant the same thing (and would have been entirely insulting to hear...).

When you call your wife by some other name, is it her name or what-you-mean-when-you-say-that-name that has the meaning? Again, we're back to the saying vs the said (I learned the fantastic pneumonic device of hyphenating-words-like-I-do in that philosophy class as well. A terribly all-around great class!!!). Like I was just saying, if it is a "new" name (or a nick-name...) then you simply attach or associate that word to the person. However, if it's a name or a word that you have already attached some unpleasant meaning to it, then, by association you have just called that person an unpleasant thing. So, in essence Juliet was wrong because a rose by some names simply wouldn't smell as sweet.

JPS