Proper use of proper nouns can take you to interesting places

While this blog’s primary purpose is the discussion of the role of the newspaper and journalism in general, today I delve into an essential aspect of that endeavor — good writing.

Writers are always thinking about writing. It is in the veins and the medulla oblongata.

You think about tone, pace, style, voice, context, persuasiveness, rhyme, reason, and how to tickle the fancy of the reader.

On a long plane ride recently I bumped into a chapter in Roy Peter Clark’s new book, “Writing Tools, 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer.” The chapter on names. On the beauty of names and how we associate with them.

Everything has a name. Everyone has a name. All God’s chilluns got names.

In fact Clark quotes from the Bible, “When the Lord God formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, he brought them to the man to see what he would call them, for that which man called each of them, that would its name.”

You can take names and list them alphabetically, by age, by height, weight or fame, ascending or descending order.

You can make a game of names, or even a song, like Shirley Ellis’ dreadful bonana fanna nonsense. Please, don’t.

Or you can string out names in a lyrical pattern with internal rhymes stretching across this here land from a dusty Winnemucca Road to Dodge City, and it’s no pity.

That’s what Johnny Cash did with his hit “I’ve Been Everywhere.”

Pittsburgh, Parkersburg, Gravelbourg, Colorado,
Ellisburg, Rexburg, Vicksburg, Eldorado,
Larimore, Admore, Haverstraw, Chatanika,
Chaska, Nebraska, Alaska, Opelika,
Baraboo, Waterloo, Kalamazoo, Kansas City,
Sioux City, Cedar City, Dodge City, what a pity.

The first version of the song was written in Australia with place names there. U.S. and New Zealand versions were also penned. Cash put the song on the map.

Writers should study this kind of use of names to better appreciate the craft, or as Clark writes, “What’s in a name? For the attentive writer, and the eager reader, the answer can be fun, insight, charm, aura, character, identity, psychosis, fulfillment, inheritance, decorum, indiscretion, and possession. For in some cultures, if I know your name and can speak, I own your soul.”

OK, that’s not my culture, but I can appreciate the nimble use of names.

Appreciate, if not master. I tried my hand a Nevada plagiarism of Cash’s lyrics once:

Of travel I've had my share, man,
I've been everywhere, man.
I've been to Reno, Elko, Denio,
Alamo, Tuscarora, Silver Peak,
Silver Springs, Spring Creek, Sin City,
Virginia City, Carson City, what a pity.

Since everybody knows the versions of the song sung by Cash, Hank Snow, Willie Nelson, Lynn Anderson and Asleep at the Wheel, I thought I’d go home for a bit and introduce you to a version by Texas singer Brian Burns: