Terence Kuch

People can’t help what they’ve been named, although I know a ‘Barbara’ who became ‘Kim’, and a ‘Jennifer’ who became ‘Emma’. While personal names are cast in legal concrete in the records that follow us from birth to death, the names of the products of our muscles and minds could, at least, avoid certain pitfalls. Two examples:

– In choosing new tubs for a bathroom remodeling project, the design I initially favored was called ‘Slipper’; not a great name for a bathtub.

– Medtner wrote a suite of piano pieces under the name ‘Forgotten Melodies’. This is too close to ‘Forgettable Melodies’ for comfort, even though some of the pieces have very lovely melodies. Too bad the tunes he picked for his piano concertos aren’t as interesting.

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