the sound of names

Current work: nonfic /MH duo book 2, chapter 1
Listening to: Beethoven piano sonatas
Reading: Sharon Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

Had a newsletter from a certain romance organisation yesterday which had a super link to an article on the meaning of the sounds of names. Very, very interesting (it’s here, if you want to see it). The official science behind this is something called phonesthetic sound symbolism – more about that here.

So an example? Kate… the K is caring and intimate (but can be snobby); the long A is spread out and wide (*cough* yeah, OK, been slacking on the diet front); and the T is Temptation, the letter of the dreamer, the designer of grand schemes, the traveller who follows her star. (Sounds very much like a short, round, romance writer to me.)

What about Pam? The P is very specific, likes everything to be out in the open, no secrets here; short A is balanced and flat (hmm, sure that L should be in that last word?); M is the maker, the mother, the magician and master of skills. (Sounds like the historian who loves her research and gets a balanced story – and who drags her kids with her on field trips. Delegates at the conference this weekend will learn a little about my field trips…) Some people add a final ‘y’ sound to my name: which apparently means “Sure! I'm game!”, naive, trusting, energetic, and expansive. Yup. This is the woman who does six things at once, takes on way too much (note, O Slowing Down Police, that I have been better this year) and isn’t very good at saying no. And who believes everyone is a new friend until proven otherwise. (And most of the time people do live up to my expectations.)

All fascinating stuff. So what about you?

Have also been reading a fascinating book about the Norfolk dialect by Peter Trudgill. I don’t have an accent, but there are three or four phrases I use which I thought were colloquial everywhere. (Especially bearing in mind that I learned them from my mother, who was born in Hampshire and grew up in Essex.) Er, no. Turns out they’re broad Norfolk.

Just out of interest (and without looking it up!), would you know what I was on about if I said that something was ‘a bit on the huh’? (Last word is the same as the phonetic pronunciation of the letter H.) I really, really wish I’d had a chance to do that dialect course I was running on about on Tuesday. Ah. Case in point. To ‘run on’ means ‘to talk too much’, as least in this part of England – but does it mean the same elsewhere?