I Was, Uh…Never Mind…
Sorry about the weeklong gap between entries, everyone (yes, both of you). I was out of town from Thursday evening through Sunday night, and was just plain lazy from then until now. In that timespan, I’ve received two new suits (a belated graduation present), assisted in hosting a large summer party back on the farm, attended a friend’s birthday party in Omaha on the 4th, and sold my soul (again) to the J. D. Edwards program, this time for graduate money. But none of that is terribly important, and if it truly interests you, I’m sure you can find a suitable means to seek me out.
A couple of observations on life as I see it:
I ran across a site about, well, the unusual lack of judgment future parents use in selecting their child’s names. A common theme among the parents in selecting bizarre names for their children is that they want a "unique" name, regardless of how strangely the name is spelled or the unwanted connotations the name may bring. It seems that many people have come to assume the uniqueness of an individual is given entirely by the label a person is given at birth, which is most unfortunate. Think for a moment of your family members, loved ones, and other friends and acquaintances; is your opinion of those persons shaped by the names given to them at birth? Of course not. Chances are, many of those people have nicknames that bear little relation to their given names, anyway. All told, my advice on naming children is thus: Don’t choose a name based on how cool or trendy it may be, choose a name that doesn’t sound (or is spelled) stupid. Common sense will prevail.
I’ve been on an on-again, off-again quest to learn more about the background and history of my surname. While all the "official" information about the Whidden name’s origins points to a mutation of the Middle English word for wheat, snippets of family oral history suggested a possible Welsh or Cornish origin (Cornish would be especially likely, since the Whidden family lived in the Dartmoor area of Devon, England since before the 12th century). After consulting the sites of the Cornish Language Fellowship and the excellent University of Michigan Middle English Dictionary (see the link in the lower left corner for free individual access), I was able to reassert that Whidden is, indeed, an English name. I bet you found that interesting. The fact that I live in a time and place where I can travel thousands of miles and find that everyone still speaks the exact same language is amazing considering that just a few hundred years ago, languages were often restricted to a single locality or ethnic group. Just another marvel of the world we now live in, I suppose…