the middle of the road is not a safe place to hide

2) lynn is at best (and worst) a middle name

i want to return to a point made in the previous entry. lynn, among its many failures as a name, rarely has the guts or the moxie or even the strength of conviction to stand on its own as a name without relying on help elsewhere. that's why it is so often shunted off to the obscure zone where less-than-acceptable names go to not yet die: the "middle name." why do we have middle names? that's a can of worms i prefer not to open tonight, but suffice it to say it is simply one more way for parent(s) to cast the weight of the world/tradition on the shoulders of their newborn bundle of joy. after all, why give something/someone a name if you have no plans to use it?

and the fact that lynn is hiding in the shadows created by the towering presence of "first" and "last" names means that many of us are sadly unaware of just how prevalent this name is. we have no idea just how many lynns actually walk among us. i shudder. true story: on a recent drive to new york city for some "big fun in the big city," i found myself in a car with 2 other people, only to find that the three of us, of various ages, genders, and places of birth, all were stuck with the middle name lynn. it is truly a hidden killer...

[[[update: while at an academic conference in a "strange city" i found myself in the exact same situation -- 3 of us, all with the middle name lynn. i was, again, the only "boy" in the group]]]

but some are so taken with what, in most likely is a moment drunk on either alcohol or post/partum hormones, they mistakenly take as the majesty of the name that they try to force the name out into the open. mind you, few are so brazen as to allow the name to jump its station in life up to "first name" status. still, they prove clever enough to figure out ways around the name's rightful position. as noted previously, lynn, whatever its massive shortcomings as a single name, seems, at least for a certain sort of person, to nicely fill the role of the final syllable of the first name. thus, you have your army of jamie lynns, stacy lynns, katie lynns, and so on and so on and so on.

this is bad enough, but some, unsatisfied with this affront to common decency, try to sneak lynn to the front of the line by merging these 2 names into some unholy alliance. the most egregious and popular example of this phenomenon is caitlyn (notice they tend to sport a dropped final "n," as if that would make it all okay). other examples include rosalyn, jocelyn (some have become so widespread, we don't even notice what's really going on).

of course, the worst offenders would have to be people like my parents. they never had any intention to call me any name other than lynn, but rather than be honest about it when they filled out the paperwork to apply for me to properly enter the world as a full citizen, they tried to sneak it past the baby/naming/bureaucracy by listing lynn as my middle name. they knew full well they'd never get me out of the hospital if they had listed lynn as my first name. a sneaky bunch, those two. but, as i found in my own life, lynn is simply not up to the challenge. it is a crutch or, at best, a prosthetic limb, but it can never be its own pair of legs. thus, it can help prop up other enfeebled names, but when asked to stand on its own, it inevitably fails. tragic.

a note on what to expect in the immediate future. while i have been getting a lot of incredible and "lively" feedback from all my fans out there (as well as from the growing opposition of the burgeoning "pro-lynn" movement [a word to all of you out there -- take your best shots! you will always fall short!]), i feel i don't want to be just a debbie downer (or should i say, lugubrious lynn?) and just talk smack about lynn. that's only half my job. so stay tuned for the next installment, which will be the first of many pro-linus entries. i can hardly wait.

lin.us out.