All those setting on a cheap Hamilton Beach blender as I puree my butternut squash soup. Or do I indeed puree it? I have a choice of frappe, liquefy, chop, grind, puree, mix, blend, etc... --a total of 14 separate settings. It reminds me of the "Esquimo snow hoax"! An anthropologist could conclude that the contemporary American has 14 separate words for putting something in a blender and pushing go. The poet as name-giver, the Platonic legislator of the Cratylus dialogue.

My seven-year old daughter Julia knows the difference between a name you give a horse and one you give a dog. Her stuffed dogs are Drumbo, Spot, John. Her horse is MacDanduff. Stanley is obviously a bear.