Tuesday, May 4, 2010

History is rife with descriptive titles such as William the Conqueror or Richard the Lionhearted. William evidently conquered things and Richard, one can only assume, killed gazelles. Take a person's most obvious quality and call him that forever. This wouldn't be bad if you were brave, powerful or had a strange animosity toward swift, horned quadripeds, but what if you weren't any of these things? What if the thing that people noticed most about you was some strange hobby or an undesirable social habit? Hey did you hear about Charles the 19th Century Silverware Collector? He's having his appendix removed. Poor guy...or Who did I see you with yesterday? Was that Thomas the Unreasonably Loud Whisperer? Perhaps it's best we call people by their names and leave these questions for history to decide. After all, if you hate gazelles that much, maybe you do deserve such a name.

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