A Plain and Simple Musing

And so it begins.

Blogging.

I am sensitive to words and I've always had a distaste for the word "blog" -- it sounds so vague and unsophisticated -- but here it is, now a part of my vernacular.

I am blogging.  I am a blogger.  These words, they do not seem like words.  

I like words.  One thing about people with Asperger's Syndrome - people like me - is that, sometimes, we have a special talent, a particular interest, or a superpower.  I've met kids who know trains, who know cars, who know maps.  As for me: my superpower is names.  

I have diverse interests - much more diverse now than when I was younger - but I have always had a passion for names.  

I have always been fascinated by the names we, as humans, give our children.  I am fascinated by the names themselves.  I am fascinated by the origins of the names.  I am fascinated by the patterns in the names themselves and the trends that dictate which names will be popular and which will not.  I am fascinated by the utilitarian purpose of our names.  

As I grew up, I broadened my interest to encompass all words.  I am fascinated by language as a whole, and how language can be simultaneously regimented and free.  I am fascinated by the rules that language has, and I am fascinated as to how these rules evolved.  I am fascinated by the beginnings of words, the way they have evolved from languages of the past, and how the words that make up our current English language contain bits and pieces of genetic material from all sorts of prior speech.  

Perhaps it is because I have Asperger's Syndrome, and perhaps it is just because I am me, but as a child - and even to this day - there are some words that I passionately detest.  Words like "goal," and the over-used phrase "work out," and the ill-defined "hike," and the word "quote" when used incorrectly as a verb.  There are many more, I'm sure - words that make me either shudder or cry or have some other visceral reaction.  

My point, that perhaps is discernible from the above biographical rant, is that I like words but I love names.  

I never liked the word "blog."  But I'm trying.