A few months back I decided that if I ever needed to sell-out and find another line of work, I would become a linguist for the pharmaceutical industry and sit around all day thinking of ambiguous names for new drugs, using my fascination with language roots and etymology as raw material for the job.
I can imagine the lunch room conversations among the team of brain-stormers: the drug-name-abstraction linguists on one side and the side-effects-minimizing linguists on the other.
Abilify: "I've got a new one that I'm working on that uses 'sanatus' again -- I'm almost there, but I can't quite get it."
May Cause Bleeding Gums: "Have you tried 'sanify'?"
Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks about this. I found this link in one of my feeds the other day, about a linguist studying the health effects of the names of cancer drugs.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
A Mysterious Quotation
Long ago I read a book about Mountain Climbing in the Himalayas and found a life-changing quote, somewhere in the front of the book.
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”
Well, I had stashed this away in my brain as a quote from Sir Edmund Hillary. I recently went to go search for it again and discovered multiple attributions to William Hutchinson Murray (a Scottish Mountaineer) and Goethe. After some very brief digging it turns out that my memory was, in fact, flaky, and people have clarified this all over the place. Here is the full quote on Murray's Wikipedia entry. I also found this nice investigation on the Goethe side: Is it by Goethe or not?
Anyhow, this is one of my favorite quotes for its obvious merits.
Anyhow, this is one of my favorite quotes for its obvious merits.
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