Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Anthurium no. 0897 "Sylvia Womansune"

I think this is one of the names I came up with, and I'm a little disappointed with it now that I look at it. I was misremembering the Neil Diamond song ("Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon,") plus "Sylvia" is not a great stand-in for "she'll be a," and I'm a little iffy on rendering "soon" as "sune," as far as that goes, though I can't think of a way to spell it that carries the pronunciation I want.1 And there are other problems with it too.2 So it's possible Sylvia's going to get a new name eventually.

Anyway. Not the most exciting seedling, but not terrible, either. I've been a little unhappy about how many of the recent seedlings have been red/red or red/purple. Nothing actually wrong with that, it's just that I've seen it a lot already and it's kind of boring to me.


And the foliage could be more impressive, though I suppose it's not bad. A little damage here and there; I can't tell if it's mechanical damage or thrips damage.



So I don't know. The seedling may or may not be a keeper; the name may or may not be a keeper too. I'll have to get back to you.

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1 When I'm trying to reproduce a phrase with a drag name, I don't like to spell the name the same way as the words they're standing in for. I want it to take a second before the meaning is obvious.
Occasionally, this ends up confusing me: I don't always remember which names I came up with and which ones are those of actual performers (especially since the performer names can come from so many different possible sources), and more than once I've found myself scratching my head, trying to figure out what I was trying to say with a name that wasn't even mine. (This was worst with the now-deceased 1135 Sylvia O'Styformore: it somehow looks enough like something I came up with that I went over and over it trying to figure out what it meant before figuring out that it was someone else's.)
2 "Sylvia Womansune" is also maybe a little problematic in that it could be taken as belittling to trans women, and I have thought about changing the name on those grounds. Haven't done it yet because I'm not sure it's a problem necessarily: there are ways to read it that aren't bad, for one thing, and for another, even when I read it as an insult, I'm not clear about where, exactly, the insult is.


3 comments:

kindafoggy said...

I like your naming system here. You should be able to find something in Lou Reed's lyrics... "Candy from out on the island" springs to mind. The coloration and form is ideal.

Paul said...

As far as "Sylvia" goes .... better would be "Shelby A. Womansune"

mr_subjunctive said...

Paul:

True. I've seen a lot of Shelbys in the roller derby names, too (Shelby C. Instarz, Shelby Churass, Shelby Impounded, Shelby Bruisin, Shelby Flyin, Shelby Unkonshus, Shelby Hurtin, Shelby N. Pain, Shelby Ruthless, Shelby Cummingtonite, Shelby N. Acoma, Shelby Toast, Shelby Sawry, etc.), so I can't say I wasn't aware of the name. Don't know why that solution didn't occur to me.

Weirdly, there's only one Shelby on the rotating names list, and it's not a pun: Shelbi Anne Baker. (Who is, or was, a queen who performed at a Kansas City bad named Missie B's, but doesn't appear on their performers page now.) Which is weird. The only explanation I can think of is that I ran into so many Shelby puns that I assumed I'd already used one of them.