Pleased to Meet You

Italics can save your life. Consider the following:

It's a fire.

It's a fire.

The non-italicized sentence is merely a statement. There's no suggestion of what to do about the matter. The italicized version has far more depth to it. It informs and makes a suggestion. It's telling you, as Big Doug likes to say, to watch out for your arse.

When italics are used, an exclamation mark is unnecessary. The italics render it redundant. That's how powerful italics can be.

Weed claims that he used to know a guy who spoke almost entirely in italics. Apparently he was quite an excitable chap.

He sounds exactly like the kind of fellow you'd want around if a fire suddenly started.

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Earlier this month, Hurricane Florence cast a brief glance in the old town's general direction. Thankfully, it passed well to the south of us.

Hot on Florence's heels was Hurricane Gordon. It posed no danger to us either.

Florence and Gordon, of course, are also the names of people who live in the Sack. Oscar found it very amusing that two hurricanes in a row were named after Sack residents. He said it would be eerie if it happened for a third time.

But this wasn't going to happen. There aren't any Sack people with a first name that begins with "H."

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Supposedly, there is one person in the Sack with a middle name that begins with "H." According to Oscar, Ben's middle name is Horatio.

I remain very doubtful about this.

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The most recent storm is Hurricane Helene. It's expected to follow the same path as the two previous storms. So it's not expected to affect the old town, either.

And there isn't anyone in the Sack named Helene.

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The subject of names is a recurring theme in Sack life.

Several times a year, we have the privilege of bestowing a name on some new or existing Sack resident. Sometimes we're naming one of Florence's (the neighbour, not the hurricane) foreign students. It could also be the matter of a new nickname for someone. The last nickname we were responsible for was Sticky, young Doo's relatively new stepdad.

More recently, we've had to come up some new baby monikers.

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About three times a year, Florence hosts a foreign female student in her home for periods of four to six weeks. The young women are usually student teachers back in their own countries. They visit the old town for an intensive English language course.

Florence, of course, is a teacher in the old town. The hosting gig is arranged through her union. It provides her with some extra income and she seems to enjoy meeting the younger teachers.

Many of the young teachers are from Asia. When they arrive in Canada, many of them choose to use an English first name for the duration of their trip. Sometimes, Florence will ask Sack residents for their assistance in choosing a name for one of her visitors.

Choosing a new name for someone is a privilege, of course. Oscar and I take the matter very seriously. Whenever Florence asks for Sack opinions (and even when she doesn't) we dedicate a segment of our show to the practice. Oscar likes to call the segment, "Name That Teacher."

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It has been some time, however, since we've had a "Name That Teacher" segment on our show. The opportunities have been few and far between. And this isn't because Florence hasn't had any foreign boarders this year, either.

Last June, a young Chinese teacher arrived at Florence's house for a month-long stay. Oscar was very dismayed to learn that the young woman had arrived with an English name already chosen. Apparently, she had the audacity to choose the name herself.

The name the young woman chose was Candy. Oscar says this was the name he was thinking about anyway.

I remain very doubtful about this, too.

***

Weed is enamoured with the idea of getting a new first name whenever you visit another country. He thinks it would be a dandy thing to put your own name aside for a while and try on a new one.

"After all," he argued, "nobody gets to choose their own first name when they're born, do they?"

If he ever went to Britain for a vacation, Weed said he would want to be known as Shane. If he went to the U.S., he would want people to call him Chip.

Oscar said he would go with Aristotle in the UK and Socrates in America. No matter where I go, I'm sticking with Guy Wonders.

***

Last week, Florence welcomed her latest foreign teacher. This young woman is from South Korea.

Oscar was excited to learn that a new boarder had arrived at Florence's house. He said we were long-overdue for the opportunity to name a teacher or two. The only way we get better at something, Oscar says, is by practising. If we didn't get some new naming opportunities, he said we were certain to lose our edge.

But Oscar was incensed when he learned that Florence, once again, didn't need our naming skills. Unlike her Chinese predecessor, the South Korean woman simply didn't require an English name. She was perfectly happy to visit the old town with her own Korean first name.

Brazen was the word Oscar kept using to describe the young woman.

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Of course, this didn't stop us from giving her a new Canadian name anyway. We considered the matter on the "Name That Teacher" segment of our most recent show.

It didn't take us very long to come up with a new name for the young South Korean woman, either. One would've expected us to be a bit rusty, after all. But it really turned out to be a simple matter.

For the next five weeks, the young teacher will be known as Helene.

Helene, of course, is now the third consecutive Sack resident to share a name with a hurricane. In addition to our Doug phenomenon, we've surely reached the ranks of the world's elite cul-de-sacs.

Take that, Pleasant Street.

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