steepholm | Who put the "world" into World Series?

On Afghanistan, President Obama has apparently invited his fellow NATO leaders to "step up to the plate". I wonder whether there isn't some danger of mistranslation here? I had a vivid mental image of Silvio Berlusconi tucking a napkin into his collar.

In other news, I've been wondering aloud to

lady_schrapnell about the names of folk/fairy tale heroes and heroines. We know the names of quite a few heroines: Rapunzel, Goldilocks, Cinderella, Gretchen, Gretel, Snow White, Cap o' Rushes, Red Riding Hood etc etc. (Admittedly, quite a few of these are nicknames: Cinderella may actually have been Edith, for all we know.) But beyond "Jack", which is more or less a synonym for "young man" anyway, how many heroes actually get a name? Aren't they far more commonly "the youngest prince", or similar? True, there's Hansel, and

lady_schrapnell mentioned a Michael, iirc, but still. So, flist, are there fewer names of heroes than of heroines? And if so, why might that be?

Finally - I wish I could remember the extempore lecture I gave in a dream last night, on the history of stage scenery and its relationship to developments in theories of perception. It was bullshit - but such bullshit!

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That's a very good question. Now I am wondering too.

Erm, about the fairy tale names, not the baseball. Though the baseball question is interesting too! Hopefully good translators are all over idioms.

I might have added that many of the female names are derived from the person's clothing or physical appearance - something we seldom hear about at all in relation to the males.

You recall correctly but incompletely - I also mentioned Princes Florizel and Charming (and I have a suspicion that Charming might do multiple duty).

So you did. Remind me where Florizel appears, though - I can only think of The Winter's Tale atm!

I'm mighty suspicious of Prince Charming (I can only see him as played by Barbie's Ken!). Was he ever the hero-as-in-protagonist of a story, or did he only get the "a prince who happened to be riding by" roles?

Ha! I have a theory... Just had a few minutes' look through A Book of Princes (in the Hamish Hamilton series of Books of - including the A Book of Princesses I gave you) and there *are* Charmings who are the protag/heroes too, along with another Michael (also a Bull, a Wish and a Gallow! These tend not to be classical fairy tales, unsurprisingly.). But my just-generated theory is that the Prince who goes as merely that matches his parents, who are merely the Queen and the King. It's enough to identify him as his position and leave it at that, while the female heroine (only the odd few deserve the title of Hero) NEEDS - often enough - to be described - again, frequently by her physical attributes - in order to explain why she's worthy of her status, such as it is.

Florizel, btw, was in "Melisande" and possibly also some other versions of "Rapunzel", though I'm not sure about the latter.

Oh yes, I think you've got a point there with the generic Princes. And there are a few generic Princesses too, I think - usually those whose rash fathers have promised their hand in marriage to the first-comer who can do X, Y and Z. (I remember in one of the Monty Python books there was a King who lost so many potential suitors that way that he asked the last Prince to go to the newsagent and buy him 20 Rothmans. I think the Prince failed anyway.)

But is Melisande (and therefore Florizel) a traditional fairy/folk tale, or just a creation of Nesbit's? In that case she probably just borrowed the name from Shakespeare.

(This was in mid-writtenness when we lost power...)

It's considered a variant of Rapunzel, but I shall check around and see if I can find -- 30 seconds later - interesting! On Sur La Lune it says that traditionally he's just 'the prince', but many modern variants have given him a name. And - I'd completely forgotten, it says there that 'Rapunzel' is another name for 'rampion', which is the herb her pregnant mother says she must have to eat or she'll die.

traditionally he's just 'the prince', but many modern variants have given him a name

I wouldn't be surprised if that was often the case in these matters.

'Rapunzel' is another name for 'rampion', which is the herb her pregnant mother says she must have to eat or she'll die.

Interesting! So even Rapunzel is a nickname, after a fashion. Well, she didn't have it so bad - she could have been called Mugwort, I guess.

Off to catch the airport bus, now - we'll hammer this out face to face later!

Who put the "world" into World Series?

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