Tuesday, March 2, 2010

On the difficulty of coming up with blog titles with the word “giraffe” in it

You may not be aware of how hard my life can be sometimes, but let me fill you in. For instance, I really struggle a lot when it comes to coming up with clever titles for giraffable posts. It’s particularly tough because I also have committed myself to starting every blog post title with the word “on” (apart from the very special extra post that appeared on 9 October 2009, but extra editions are supposed to be special, so I am good). I used the title “On giraffes” within the first week or so of blogging, and ever since I have had this persistent problem.


This may or may not have been the reason that the digression part of my blog has become much larger than the giraffe one.

Despite such hardships, however, I try to carry on. Future blog titles in posts where giraffes are prominent may or may not be:

a) On giraffes (agaaaaain);
b) On giraffing;
c) On the giraffe;
d) On a giraffe;
e) On animals with very long necks;
...and so on. We shall see.

Today’s post’s giraffability once again concerns the baby giraffe in Kristiansand Dyrepark. As predicted (by yours truly – I sense that a psychic streak runs in the family), there now is an ongoing competition to name the giraffe. First, there was the option of sending in suggestions. I wanted to do that, but I couldn’t think of any appropriate names, and then I realized that there were already a gazillion suggestions – many of them very good. So, instead I waited for the second part of the naming rite, where people can vote on whichever one they prefer out of eight (I think) names (from the gazillion suggestions) picked by a jury. It seems, then, that the giraffe will end up being called

a) Laffen; or
b) Raffen; or
c) Yoda (!); or even
d) Jacques Sjiraff (which I am not supporting, seeing as I strongly dislike the spelling variant “sjiraff” as opposed to “giraff” in Norwegian. Though I like the pun); or
e) Milo (which received my vote, even though it is a laundry detergent brand…);
...or one or two others that I can’t remember anymore (I can't for the life of me find the list. The site that where I found them now only has a "you've already voted" message, and I can't make it go away. It appears that once you've voted, the potential names for the baby giraffe becomes owiueuowihgew).

In other giraffe related news, I can proudly announce that at http://www.onemilliongiraffes.com/ (still one of my very favourite websites that I, once again, recommend to absolutely everyone) one of the many giraffes I have contributed with was made “Giraffe of the day” yesterday, 1 March 2010.

It may or may not have been a deliberate strategy to
a) cheer me up; or
b) make me make more giraffes and advertize them on my blog, since it’s been a while
...(the latter is probably more realistic), but, either way, my giraffe has been singled out, AGAIN! Yay! This is a very exclusive company to be part of – of the 602 098 giraffes that so far have been uploaded to the site, only 264 have been picked to be giraffe of the day (and mine twice – wohoo!).

For the record, it did cheer me up =)

Have a giraffabulous day!

6 comments:

H.B.Markor said...

Milo is a cute name, there's a movie called 'Milo and Otis', I think it's about a cat and dog though, no giraffe.

Congrats on the giraffe if the day, it is a very pretty one. I bet Ola has been reading your blog, knows that you are secretly in love with him, and is sucking up to you so that he can ask you on a date when he meets you. *nodnodnod*

Anonymous said...

Might I suggest "giraffe" in other languages? I'm sure that would be a giraffably exciting prospect.

Elizabeth Spann Craig said...

I'm with anonymous...."giraffe" in other languages could make the challenge easier!

Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder

Cruella Collett said...

Maria - that is an interesting theory... I like it ;) (Am particularly curious about the "when" as opposed to "if" part of it...)

Anonymous - there's an idea! The only problem is that the word for giraffe tends to be relatively similar in different languages. Norwegian: giraff/sjiraff (but as we have established, I boycott the latter); Swedish: giraff; German: giraffe; French: girafe.
There are a few good ones, though - Estonian: kaelkirjak (this one I actually knew - the other ones I had to Wikipedia. Go figure...); Bosnian: Žirafa; Gaelic: Mwannalagh (looks like the noise you make when you want to laugh, but can't because it would be totally inappropriate).
I might go for some of these ;)

Elizabeth - who am I to ignore a brilliant double-advice? Will look into it ;)

Michelle Gregory said...

i'll have to check out these giraffe-y sites. i had the wonderful fortune of feeding giraffes at our local zoo. it was a thrill and a half, something i'd always wanted to do. now if i could just get to pet one.

Cruella Collett said...

Michelle - that sounds lovely. Considering how much I love giraffes I haven't actually spent all that much time around them, so I probably should make a point of going to zoos (or, you know, Africa) more often!

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