Thursday, October 26, 2006
Bryan, Where Are You?
A bizarre site offers to tell me how many people in the United States share my name. None, I assumed. Up come the results - 284,970 called Bryan and 870 called Appleyard. And then - gasp - one called Bryan Appleyard! One! How are you, mate? Who are you? Do we speak the same language? Never mind. Scientists are working on a machine that will make us appear bilingual. I mouth the words, sensors on my head detect what I intend to say and a computer translates it into the rare Sioux dialect which, I like to imagine, is what my new friend, Bryan, speaks. I always did have a soft spot for the Sioux. Troublingly, however, this device makes one's conversation resemble that of a dubbed movie.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
One Bryan Appleyard per continent is more than enough. As for that machine making one's conversation resemble a dubbed movie, as long the the movie has a good plot, is well cast and doesn't have a Hollywood ending, then I would happily dash down to Curry's to pick one up.
ReplyDeleteLeave me alone.
ReplyDeleteIt's the 'y' in Bryan that counts. If you have your 'y' in life, you can put up with almost any 'how'.
ReplyDeleteHear hear!
ReplyDeleteCool site. I'm the only one of me, as I knew I would be. Any person in the U.S. with my last name is a cousin o' mine. And another benighted former Huguenot who survived the Catholic purgings in France long enough to make it to these semi-hospitable shores in the 1700s.
ReplyDeleteNow, "Susan," that's a different deal: 25th most popular name in the U.S. S'okay. My high school was filled with Vickies, so I feel I dodged a bullet.
Only three others with my exact name. I hope the name has served them well. It has done a reasonble job for me. Our name is something we need to look after for future generations I suppose. I have successfully passed the name on to my children without it having been too tarnished by my escapades.
ReplyDeleteWell there's not a single one of me - but then Anonymous is a pretty unusual name even here...
ReplyDeleteWell well... I have always wondered how many Yanks' shared my name. Answer: '0'. At least i now know! I can now rest my troubled mind. Thank the Lord for the Internet!
ReplyDeleteBryan, I don believe there's something in this thing but I am writing a post right now about Sioux City and you've posted about the Sioux. What are the odds? And today a lady said she wanted to open a cafe/bookshop and this is also what I'm currently working on. Plus why do streetlamps go out when I walk under them and then come on again?
ReplyDeleteBecause, James, you are a warlock. So am I. Dogs turn and stare at me. But we mustn't let anybody know.
ReplyDeleteThere are zero Gordon McCabes in the USA. However, I've just discovered that, not only do I have a coat of arms, but I also have a family motto: 'Either conquer or die'.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.whoswho-online.com/mccabe/personal/heraldry.html
Sadly, my philosophical training ruins what would otherwise be a principle I could use to good effect in the modern workplace: as a mortal man, I must die, and because the motto takes the form of a logical disjunction in which one disjunct asserts the occurrence of death, the motto as a whole must be true.
I could only find a "Brian Appleyard" in Bradenton Beach, Florida. There does seem to be a small group of Appleyards living in that area.
ReplyDelete