Assorted Viruses

Good morning to everyone reading this. I’m writing this at 6:30 am and the dawn hasn’t touched our eastern sky yet, but our days are getting longer and warmer. The predicted high for today is +4 C — quite tropical for Feb in SK.

This has brought on a bout of SPRING FEVER in man and beast. Our cats wanted to go outside early this morning and see what’s happening. Once the sun is up they’ll want to be outdoors for hours.

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is VIRAL, a word with several different connotations.

Spring Fever isn’t a virus but it affects a lot of people, for all that. There is much concern worldwide for the latest Corona-virus and the possible epidemic it may become. On the other hand, it may be just like other influenza strains that render a lot of people sick for a few days, but only those with extremely compromised immune systems will die from it.

There are the viruses that spread across the internet, fuzzing up our communications. Many users find their systems compromised or hacked into by some virus or other.

And there are posts that go viral. Do you wish you could write something brilliant that everyone wants to comment on and share with their own readers, their friends and relatives? Have you seen a post topic that went viral?

One time a blogger and his wife were having a baby and he posted about their process of choosing a name. Should they give their child a traditional name or go with something trendy? That post got hundreds, if not over a thousand, comments. Readers everywhere were either offering suggestions or writing about the unique to just-plain-wacky names they’d encountered.

Johnny Cash was right with his song, A Boy Named Sue. When you give a child a weird name, you raise a fighter. As I read that post I felt so sorry for children who have to live with some of those names, like Mainline, Heroin, Cocaine, Kleenex.

Some parents have taken a normal name or word, and given it a twist, like Orangejello and Lemonjello, pronounced O-RAHN-je-lo and ley-MAHN-je-lo, Male and Female pronounced MAH-lay and FAY-MAH-lay. It was mentioned that these names come from immigrant parents; their grasp of English is poor and in their own language the words sound quite pleasant. However, their child will have a lifetime of correcting every single person who ever sees their name and pronounces it the way it’s spelled.

Some parents decorate their child with a name, while other names originate in a parent’s personal statement to the world. Like the girl named Breathe — because the mother wanted her daughter to not rush through life, but remember to stop and take a deep breath. By the same logic, Think, Breakfast, Smelltheroses and Agoodnightsleep could pass — but please don’t! And please, no political statements like Impeachtrump.

I suspect these parents never had to live with going to school day after day and hearing classmates snicker about their name. Yes, we’re supposed to live in an enlightened, no-bullying society where everything’s accepted; in reality kids still mock what they see as “weird.” As Johnny Cash sang, “I tell ya, life ain’t easy for a boy named Sue!”

Anyway, it was a very interesting and enlightening post; you can see why it went viral. So many names; so many opinions.

By now the sun is up and I shall go and deal with the Spring Fever at our house.