namesmanship

Namesmanship, as will be obvious by now, is no game. It deals with material that lies deeply in everyone and is brought to the surface by a few.

1983, Mary Lassiter, Our names, our selves: the meaning of names in everyday life, page 144

Every important home in Bexley was known by name, but not that of the current or even the previous owner. There was some unwritten code of namesmanship which attributed each house to a former owner who might, or might not, still be alive.

2002, Frederick L. Cullen, Secrets Are Anonymous

A quality stabilization bill, a citizen might suppose, would be a bill having something to do with quality stabilization. But that's where said citizen would betray his innocence of legislative namesmanship.

1963, United States. Congress, Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the Congress, page A5589

In effect, it means that DOD has agreed that, if most of the country's population and property are to be protected against ICBM's, some losses must be accepted. The Pentagon's namesmanship experts call this the “bloody nose” concept.

1963, Professional Journal of the United States Army, page 62

There is no stipulation in the legislation that the person have a certain precentage of Spanish or Native American blood. It is all namesmanship. Other universities will be glad to have us. We're well trained and now, fortunately, well-named.

1976, Anthropology Newsletter - Volumes 17-18, page 47

In testing this scheme by tabulating the profile of name choices, the array of unwritten codes within seriously understudied business and nonbusiness enterprises, in this instance a variety of such in present-day Chicago, we find striking contrasts as well as some commonalities but, most usefully, insights into the psychology and strategies of namesmanship and into general societal values.

2005, Linguistic Society of America, Meeting Handbook, page 63

Our human trait of unwillingness to admit word ignorance often leads to survival of duplicated or spurious meanings. There is now no doubt that namesmanship has hindered the analysis of published knowledge quite seriously, and this will be outlined below

1965 December, GB Elliott, “Miniature endocrine amplifiers as end organs of the involuntary nervous system: The functional linkage between adrenal medulla and glomus jugulare”, in The Laryngoscope, volume 12, number 75

In his preface, a scholar can practice two kinds of namesmanship. In Downward Namesmanship, the author lists those who assisted him: students, secretaries, librarians, and so on, which shows he is important enough to command such resources.

1957, The New Leader - Volume 40, Part 1, page 24

In a letter to the editor referring to an earlier piece about names that were difficult to pronounce or spell (J.C. Furnas, "In the Names We Go By,", Dec. 28, 1957) the writer suggests: "How could J. C. Furnas write a piece about namesmanship and not mention Lake Chargoggaggoggmanchaugagoggchaubunagungamaug near Webster, Mass.? Sissies call it Webster Lake.

2000, Peter G. Beidler, Marion F. Egge, Native Americans in the Saturday Evening Post, page 59