The Magazine  Naming Names  David Skinner, naming names.  May 5,
2008, Vol. 13, No. 32 • By DAVID SKINNER Widget tooltip Single
Page Print Larger Text Smaller Text Alerts  One early sign of
man's superior station in the natural hierarchy was that he got
to name the animals--this according to the Book of Genesis. If
the job had fallen to me and my wife Cynthia, I'm afraid the
story would have ended right there. Instead of a mess of well-
named beasts and long chains of confidently though curiously
named people begetting each other for many generations, the
whole miniseries of God's chosen people would have run aground
in episode one.  Part of our naming problem derives from
differences in our styles of brainstorming. When I can't find
the right word, I just start riffling through words like cards
in a rolodex. J.D. Salinger, I once read, would sometimes pause
for hours while he wrote out long lists of words in search of
the perfect one. I count this as evidence that Salinger is not
insane. (Kerouac, by contrast