Term of the day: alias: false name meant to conceal one’s identity.
Thoughts:
This definition sounds a bit sinister, but at its core, an alias is meant to be somewhat secretive. Special/secret agents use aliases to hide their true identity, not because they don’t want people to know who they are, but because they want to protect the life and or families they have when they’re not working. Unfortunately this goes both ways. Many people do use aliases to carry out misdeeds or to elude the authorities. Sometimes, however, alias are simply practical. When you “wear many hats” you are often given titles to account for each job you do; alias can serve a similar purpose. (Titles will be discussed another day.)
For authors, the sacred pen name, replaces the alias. Authors use pens name for many reasons, both sinister and not. However, the most practical reason to use a pen name is to distinguish differences in the works of one author. Maybe author Sara P. Frosten has written children’s books her whole life, but when she decides to dabble in YA fiction she uses the name S. Prim, Frost so as not to confuse or lose any of her fans. That seems pretty practical to me.
Name of the day: Esset.
Breakdown and meaning:
Esset is a name I made up, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a meaning for it. Since I speak English, my focus when coming up with the name was on English influences and origins. However, it seems as though “esset” is some form of conjugation for the German word “essen”, of which I have no understanding or meaning.
Luckily when I came up with this name I hadn’t done all my research and was blissfully ignorant of the German connection. Esset is an almost non-existent character in my Eternal Curse Series, but her impact is strong and vital to the story. I wanted the name of this character to reflect her great worth. In my search to define “something of value or worth” the word “asset” gleamed across my computer. As with many names derived from everyday words, I substituted an ‘e’ for the ‘a’ and had the name I so desired.
Well, that’s it for Day 10. See you tomorrow.
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Go back to the beginning to see all the posts in this series.
Outside of my own personal search throughout the years, basic meanings and definitions of the terms used here can be found at the following websites:http://www.meaning-of-names.com/, Google search http://en.wikipedia.org/, and http://dictionary.reference.com/.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords
