Even my name doesn't belong to me
Oct. 6th, 2007 03:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonSo I was playing around on google (no, really, I wasn't searching for my own name) and quite by fluke and accident came across a short story published on a writers' site called Helium. "Taking the Bus" by Pj Thompson.
Nope, so not me. No periods after the initials. I thought I had that copyrighted. Alas, you can't copyright a name. No bio listed for this author with the story, either.
If he/she is PJ Thompson h/she is just as entitled to h/er/is name as me, but dang. Bad enough some damned businessman gobbled up pjthompson.com and somebody's sitting on pjthompson.net—now some writer is writing under PJ Thompson?
Having found that, I did a big more in-depth searching and found there's a P.J. Thompson who has done a great many academic articles in the biomed field. Not me, either. And one P. J. Thompson wrote The Poetry of Brecht. Not me, though I might have liked to have written that one. I digs me some Brecht. And some British guy writing travel blogs, somebody writing reviews at Amazon German, a poster on diet blogs, and someone commenting on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hominysnark's blog...oh wait, that was me.
But the list of wannabe PJ Thompsons is endless. Mainly because the list of PJ Thompsons is endless. It's apparently a very common initial set, and I remember reading somewhere that Thompson is the 16th most common name in the United States.
As my uncle, Hunter S. Thompson, once said...Okay, so as far as I know, I'm not related to Hunter S. Thompson. Given his proclivity for booze and bizarreness, he certainly should belong in my family tree, but...no.
Anyway, back to Uncle Hunter: "Paranoia is just another word for ignorance."
There isn't enough ignorance on the interdweeb, not nearly enough.
Nope, so not me. No periods after the initials. I thought I had that copyrighted. Alas, you can't copyright a name. No bio listed for this author with the story, either.
If he/she is PJ Thompson h/she is just as entitled to h/er/is name as me, but dang. Bad enough some damned businessman gobbled up pjthompson.com and somebody's sitting on pjthompson.net—now some writer is writing under PJ Thompson?
Having found that, I did a big more in-depth searching and found there's a P.J. Thompson who has done a great many academic articles in the biomed field. Not me, either. And one P. J. Thompson wrote The Poetry of Brecht. Not me, though I might have liked to have written that one. I digs me some Brecht. And some British guy writing travel blogs, somebody writing reviews at Amazon German, a poster on diet blogs, and someone commenting on
hominysnark's blog...oh wait, that was me. But the list of wannabe PJ Thompsons is endless. Mainly because the list of PJ Thompsons is endless. It's apparently a very common initial set, and I remember reading somewhere that Thompson is the 16th most common name in the United States.
As my uncle, Hunter S. Thompson, once said...Okay, so as far as I know, I'm not related to Hunter S. Thompson. Given his proclivity for booze and bizarreness, he certainly should belong in my family tree, but...no.
Anyway, back to Uncle Hunter: "Paranoia is just another word for ignorance."
There isn't enough ignorance on the interdweeb, not nearly enough.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-06 11:46 pm (UTC)Fortunately, my last name is unusual enough that most confusion is avoided.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-06 11:54 pm (UTC)