It’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday! Everybody’s looking forward to the weekend, weekend!
For everyone who now has that Rebecca Black song stuck in your head, you’re welcome. Or maybe I’m sorry. Depends on your opinion of the song. It got lampooned far more than necessary, and was pretty catchy.
Anyway, apologies. Is there anyone out there named Paula Geez? Or Paula Gees? Or Paul Ogees? That name is made for the BoFN.
Pictured: Signe Toly Anderson, RIP.
Not pictured: a White Rabbit, or an Airplane, or a Starship, or any other thematic flourishes.
We’ll launch right into this week’s FNITN with a solemn update from the music world. Signe Toly Anderson, one of the founding members of Jefferson Airplane, passed away two weeks ago in Beaverton, Oregon. In a bizarrely coincidental occurrence, she died on January 28, at the age of 74 – the exact same day and age as Jefferson Airplane co-founder Paul Kantner. They had a lot in common, but Signe’s name was vastly superior.
We move from solemn news to extraordinarily uplifting news, that shines a bright light on the human condition. Atticus Edmunds is an 8-year-old boy with a fantastic name who has been confined to a wheelchair due to low-tone cerebral palsy. Atticus loves a good thrill, and a video of his dad and him having fun in a skate park has gone viral. He’s definitely done more cool stuff than I’ve ever done at a skate park. I just fell, a lot. Atticus also has gained his fair share of followers on social media due to his singing covers of Katy Perry songs. What a champ! The story is also helping raise awareness about cerebral palsy, and hopefully CP research can get a boost too…
Ursula Goodenough chillin’ with her daughter and Harry Belafonte. That’s gooder than good!
Continuing with our theme of “All The Funny Named News That’s Good Enough,” we’ve found the perfect academic for us. A colleague informed me of a superbly-named researcher from Washington University in St. Louis, Ursula Goodenough. Ursula has proven to be more than good enough. Just being a researcher at the esteemed Wash U is pretty fantastic, but she’s done remarkable work on eukaryotic algae. How do we know it’s remarkable? Well, I’m making remarks about it.
Also, she has an impressive CV, has done plenty of work on Religious Naturalism, and her 10.8 ResearchGate Impact Factor and 100+ citations are way way way better than my humble 3.93 and 5 citations. If that makes Ursula “goodenough” then you can call me Dave “smallfishnotreadyforprimetime.” Actually, please do call me that! C’mon anesthesiology manuscript! Let’s get accepted and get rollin’! Let’s see if we can break into the double digits of citations 🙂 I’ll still be a small fish, but maybe I can stop being a tadpole and morph into a frog. Or at least a respectable minnow!
In cool tech news, the indispensable Fannie “Banannie” Cranium brings us some cool updates from the Codex Hackathon. The Codex Hackathon was sponsored by Automattic, the makers of WordPress. Their work is already fantastic and has accounted for all of WordPress, including the 600+ posts and 252,000 reads on this here blog, but wait… there’s more!
Fannie’s favorite names from the Codex Hackathon include: “Kjell Reigstad, Mel Choyce, Kelly Dwan and Kat Hagan, who bring us reading, writing, and Automattic.:)”
And it doesn’t get much better than that! Thanks for joining us for this hacky, researchy filled-to-the-brim edition of Funny Names in the News. Enjoy your weekends, happy Presidents Day on Monday, and we’ll catch you on the flip side. Or in Atticus Edmund’s case, the acrobatic kick-flip side!
The Blog of Funny Names 
Funny names, check. Name related pun, check. Medical school reference, check. Yep, this is a Dave post all right!
Goodenough for me! That’s a great name. How does that even come about? Find out in our investigative edition, “What’s the Deal with That Name?” hosted by Jerry Seinfeld.
Would you believe me if I said I’ve still never heard that Rebecca Black song? Feels almost too late now.
You callin’ me predictable? More like pre-eminently dictable.
I don’t even know what that means. Could be a good thing, could be a bad thing. Tough to say.
What’s the DEAL with that NAME? sounds like a fantastic segment.
And you oughta listen to that Rebecca Black song. For your cultural literacy, so you don’t come across as some foreigner that doesn’t know our ways and customs…
I also helped blaze new territory… the first time we’ve used the term “respectable minnow” in a BoFN post. The Google tells me that two other people have used that phrase before, just not in a WordPress blog. Woohoo! Trailblazers!
Golly gee willikers, Arto, we don’t have to worry about guessing posters anymore! Why, the byline is right up there on top with this ULTRA NEW, SUPER DUPER IMPROVED BLOG THEME.
Yippee.
Aw shucky darn! As long as you think it’s SUPER DUPER IMPROVED then I guess we’ll keep it!
boris badenov (bullwinkle and rocky show) is the perfectl partner for ursula goodenough.
OH!!!!! THAT IS SO GOOD!!!!
Nice one, ksbeth!
Excellent FNitN roundup, King Dave. I knew not one single thing about Signe Toly Anderson until I read this post. I wonder why this wasn’t as much in the news as Paul Kantner’s passing? Overshadowed by Grace Slick?
Nice interview with Signe here:
No can do on the Codex front; it sounds just like Kotex, and no lady wants to be reminded of that. As to Atticus, “that was fantastic” as he said! Go, Atticus! It does seem curious that Ms. Goodenough did not take her five children’s husband’s name. I guess her maiden name was Goodenough not to change?
The funny thing is I’ve always thought of a codex as a huge stack of paper with important info, but now I will never think of it the same way again.
Atticus is a champ, and Goodenough is definitely a goodenough name!
None of the stuff I wrote in this comment would have made any sense to me a few days ago.
LOL true that.