What’s in a name?
Some people ask right away, other times it’s a question that comes up only after a few beers. What kind of name is zinc Roe and what does it mean? Over the years I have developed several replies to this enquiry:
“It has no meaning.”
“It was my the name of my great-grandfather’s third cousin twice removed.”
“What do you think it means?”
“You know – metal fish eggs.”
The truth is a little more straight-forward. The name came up during a semi-random conversation over beers at the Albion Hotel in Guelph while I was a student there. We were talking about how one could pick two words at random and assess how well they fit together. It’s like when you must pick a name for a baby. The first name has to sound right when combined with the last name. What is it that makes words sound ‘right’ together? Well, we never did answer that question. But during the conversation I came up with zinc roe as an example of a pair of words that sound like they ought to be something. The next year, when I needed a name to slap on a project out came zinc Roe and it just stuck.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
There’s also the classic zinc Roe myth of someone mishearing “Jason Krogh” over the phone as “zinc roe.” The telephone game story has enough of a ring of truth that it fooled me for a number of years. It’s the zinc Roe version of purple monkey dishwasher.