Juliet, knowing that Romeo is a Montague, asks, “What’s in a name?” She then goes on to make the oft-quoted statement about “a rose.”
Sometimes names can be misleading. The semiprecious gem turquoise, for example, is not associated with the geology of Turkey; yet, its name derives from the French for Turkey. Seems that traders carrying the bluish mineral from ancient and medieval Persia passed through what is modern Turkey to, among other locales, the region now called France.
Like turquoise, you have passed through a number of places, such as schools, towns or cities or rural areas, and regions. On your way through any place you might stop, spend some time, and pick up regional social characteristics. You might not recognize the stamp of place on you, but outsiders do: Idioms, indigenous dialects, and even common gestures. The point? You are, in a manner of speaking, a Montague, a recognizable entity in generalization.
What a shame? There you are, a highly intelligent individual with skills, talents, knowledge, and experience, and yet, upon being met by an outsider, you are limited to your “family name,” a name derived from generalizations about some place where you once spent a bit of your life or a group with whom you associated. Okay, let me tell you, Montague, why this matters.
There are many Capulets out there who will never see you as an individual, but that will, instead, mark you by group or place. Visiting New York from Steubenville, Ohio, or from Lebanon, Pennsylvania? Come from the Low Country? Spend some time on a farm in the Midwest or a ranch in the West? Serve as a logger in Medford, Oregon? “What’s it like out there in the unsophisticated sticks?” a New Yorker asks. Being treated thus is not pleasant, is it?
In turn, at some time you have been guilty of the same kind of bias. Of course, by any name turquoise is generally blue. It just doesn’t come from Turkey regardless of its name. Maybe you should get to know it more specifically as hydrous copper-aluminum phosphate, a mineral that occurs in different colors. Know, also, that not every ostensible Montague is an actual Montague.
Oh! Just remember: Not every bluish mineral is turquoise, and not every turquoise is blue.
Sometimes names can be misleading. The semiprecious gem turquoise, for example, is not associated with the geology of Turkey; yet, its name derives from the French for Turkey. Seems that traders carrying the bluish mineral from ancient and medieval Persia passed through what is modern Turkey to, among other locales, the region now called France.
Like turquoise, you have passed through a number of places, such as schools, towns or cities or rural areas, and regions. On your way through any place you might stop, spend some time, and pick up regional social characteristics. You might not recognize the stamp of place on you, but outsiders do: Idioms, indigenous dialects, and even common gestures. The point? You are, in a manner of speaking, a Montague, a recognizable entity in generalization.
What a shame? There you are, a highly intelligent individual with skills, talents, knowledge, and experience, and yet, upon being met by an outsider, you are limited to your “family name,” a name derived from generalizations about some place where you once spent a bit of your life or a group with whom you associated. Okay, let me tell you, Montague, why this matters.
There are many Capulets out there who will never see you as an individual, but that will, instead, mark you by group or place. Visiting New York from Steubenville, Ohio, or from Lebanon, Pennsylvania? Come from the Low Country? Spend some time on a farm in the Midwest or a ranch in the West? Serve as a logger in Medford, Oregon? “What’s it like out there in the unsophisticated sticks?” a New Yorker asks. Being treated thus is not pleasant, is it?
In turn, at some time you have been guilty of the same kind of bias. Of course, by any name turquoise is generally blue. It just doesn’t come from Turkey regardless of its name. Maybe you should get to know it more specifically as hydrous copper-aluminum phosphate, a mineral that occurs in different colors. Know, also, that not every ostensible Montague is an actual Montague.
Oh! Just remember: Not every bluish mineral is turquoise, and not every turquoise is blue.
RSS Feed