Punc:Tu'ati.On. A rant.

Well, of course we can call ourselves whatever we like, and if we want to be famous then giving ourselves a strange name might help to make us stand out in the crowd.

(Some of us have quite strange names to start with. I realise that. Who better?)

Using punctuation to decorate your name seems to be fashionable at the moment. We have will.i.am, P!nk, India.arie and of course that old favourite Hear'Say.

I don't know, though. Are the people who give themselves a novelty name the ones who fear they aren't quite charismatic enough to manage with an ordinary one?

I look back and find that Westward Ho!, named by Charles Kingsley, isn't the destination of choice for...well, most people. The Canadian town of Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! isn't actually very famous outside Canada, either. 

Or even quite possibly inside it.

Lastly, how about Nicholas Unless-Jesus-Christ-Had-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barbon? He was named in 1640.

All those years, and he still hasn't really made it, has he.

Word To Use Today: punctuation. This word arrived in the 1600s from the Latin word punctuāre, to prick, from punctum, a prick, from pungere to puncture,