TheBanyanTree: Fwd: "Celestine Prophecy" by James Redfield

[Peter Macinnis]

Dee wrote:

> Either that or his wife had to field too many calls from lustful wicked 
> wimmen.

Maybe he was charged under the Trade Descriptions Act?

This reminds me of a short news story I wrote, about six years back:

Anybody who has been through it knows that starting dating is a 
difficult time for young people, but a group of researchers have just 
questioned the assumption that girls' self-esteem suffers the most in 
the earliest boy/girl romantic relationships. In a report in the 
_Journal of Youth and Adolescence_, they claim that it is the boys who 
are more vulnerable - especially if they feel pressured into dating, at 
least in the United States.

The study involved sixth, seventh and eighth graders completing 
questionnaires, taking part in interviews, and keeping telephone 
diaries. Most of the boys and girls found involvement in mixed-sex 
settings enjoyable and challenging, rather than stressful. However, boys 
who were dating but who were less than enthusiastic about having a 
girlfriend had lower self-esteem than their non-dating peers or boys who 
were very interested in dating.

The study is mainly memorable for the researchers, who appear to be 
attempting a world record on nominative determinism. Aside from Linda 
Caldwell, who was obviously not part of the attempt, the study was 
conducted by Nancy Darling, Bonnie B. Dowdy and Lee Van Horn.

*************

That led to another story, a month later:

"Nominative determinism" is the fancy name given to a situation where a 
person's name seems to be linked in some way to their work, like Mr. 
Waters, the brewery manager, Ms. Drain the plumber, that sort of thing. 
Because of the wide range of their activities, medical workers have many 
more chances than most of finding their name classified as apt in some 
way, as Mari Stoddard, a staff member with the Arizona Health Sciences 
Library educational services group, has discovered.

As a result, she now has a Web site, 
http://educ.ahsl.arizona.edu/mla/doctor.htm, where you will find Dr 
Skinner, the dermatologist, and Dr Foote, the podiatrist. The more 
"unfortunate" include surgeons Drs. Pain and Slaughter. According to 
reports, Stoddard began the list after an exchange on a medical 
librarians' Internet list, and soon started to have offers of new names, 
each of which she has had to verify. Even the medicos have been joining 
in, and so far, nobody has complained at being listed, not even Dr 
Smellsey or Dr Kutteroff.

*************

The URL no longer works, but try 
http://www.ahsc.arizona.edu/opa/news/dec99/names.htm to find something 
similar

cheers


-- 
  _--|\   Peter Macinnis, feral wordsmith, & science gossip,
/     \  friend of flatworms, pseudoscorpions and onychophorans;
\.--._*  confidence advisor, Australian skydiving trampoline relay team
      v   http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/index.htm