What's in a name?

This probably should have been the first post on this blog...

What’s in a name?

When I chose the name for this blog, Atlantic Whispers, I had several ideas in mind. One was an allusion to Chinese whispers, that childhood party game when a sentence is whispered around a circle, with sometimes hilarious results. The standard example, from the period of the First World War, is:

Starting sentence: Send reinforcements we’re going to advance.

End sentence: Send three and fourpence we’re going to a dance.

Blogs are a little like that process of transformation. The writer, often in a hurry to post the next number, writes something that could have been better expressed, and before you can say “Jacques Robinson”, the intent of the message has been misread and passed on, transformed.

Secondly, I don’t expect my blog to have a big following, so “whispers” seemed more appropriate than, say “Shout Out”, or “Roar”.

Thirdly, positioned as I am on the extreme eastern edge of North America, and with friends and family (potential readers) in Britain, the Atlantic had to be included somehow.

Of course, since starting this activity (it’s hardly and enterprise) the name has become self-fulfilling: my voice is so quiet as to be barely audible beyond the few who have endorsed it. No comments yet.

So maybe, just maybe, I’ll try being a little more provocative in my posts…