Dinner at Allison and Joe's

Wednesday, New Year's Eve 2008

[Brief linguistic diversion. The order of the names of couples that we know, we have figured out after much data gathering and testing of theories, is determined by a set of ordered rules. See if the same is true of you. At first, we were afraid that our naming patterns revealed an unconscious sexism—the horror, the shame for good little pinko-liberal-feminists like us!—since the man's name tended to lead: Jon and Lois, John and Peggy, Brian and Catherine.

However, further research in the lab revealed anomalies in the pattern: Allison and Joe, Mary and Fred, Cathy and Russel. And then there were Brian and Bob, Vaden and Ginger.

The rules on reflection turn out to be fairly simple—metrical/euphonious rather than sexist. In a pair of names the shortest comes first. The boys' names seem to lead because they tend to be shorter, blunter, less mellifluous than girls' (at least in English). This is a standard way of building an English period with gradually lengthening clauses ("Our lives [1 beat], our fortunes [2 beats], and our sacred honor [4 beats]"). However, the rule is preceded by another. If we knew the couple originally as a couple, then the rule of length applies. If not, the person we knew first comes first. So, we knew Allison (as a graduate student) before we knew Joe (her husband). We met Mary before Fred, Brian before Bob, and Brian before Catherine. Notice how the last example masks its origins: it seems to be a) male first, or b) shorter first, but is in fact c) first met first. Such is science: facts, patterns, anomalies in patterns, hypothesis, test of hypothesis, exceptions that prove the rule. Right up there with General Relativity and the Double Helix. Where was I? Oh, yes . . . ]

Dinner with (dactylic) Allison and (monosyllabic) Joe. Allison is not only dactylic but gravid.* We brought prosecco to celebrate, not in a mocking spirit, though it did mean more booze for us! They started us off with tasty stuffed mushrooms, then a tomato and goat cheese pasta, and amazingly a fresh salad, raised under grow-lights. It occurred to us halfway through our wintry chlorophyll rush, that some people with a disregard for the law might be tempted to misuse such an invention for raising things other than lettuce. Could this, and not salad, possibly account for the popularity of grow lights in urban apartments?
Dessert was a family recipe for lemon-seed cake. Barbara is a sucker for anything with lemons, and the poppy seeds merely continued the drug-addled theme of the evening. Joe proved a knowledgeable and generous guide to the valleys and glens of Scotland. A splendid time was had by Holt and Joe (monosyllabic), Barbara (syncopated disyllabic) and Allison (trisyllabic, gravid, and sober).

*Pregnant, in the club, up the spout, in a family way, abreeding, expecting, knocked up, gonnahaffababy, great with child, and absolutely great with children.