When we don’t have one, we make one.
I suppose there are no names for things we have not yet discovered.

I heard once that there is no name for the backside of the knee.

@DrBill: Popliteal fossa!

How about the sin nombre virus

New viruses are normally named after rivers or other geographical things near where they are discovered. This virus was discovered in the US however and locals complained, not wanting to be asociated with a deadly virus (locals who could afford lawyers, not like the locals who live near the Ebola river) so it ended up with no name.

I think God refused to answer when asked His name, back in the Olden Days. He said the same thing Popeye said: I yam what I yam. So he may not be nameable. “He”, ha ha.

@Lightlyseared: But, it ended up with a name after all, so…not really.

@asmonet true but I like the story

@susanc: I’m pretty sure God says he is Yahweh in the Old Testament, at least. But I’m pretty sure it translates to “I am.” I haven’t really thought about it in years, I could be way off and remembering bits and pieces incorrectly.

Doesn’t seem like there is a name for Earth’s moon…Moon shouldn’t count as a proper name.

Moon is the proper name, the Latin name being Luna.

@forestGeek Lvna, Selene.. bla bla bla.. the Moon has plenty of names in plenty of languages.
That’s a rather good choice, but a common noun counts as a name, as I consider it.

@asmonet But still, it’s silly that we refer to it as “the Moon” when there are so many other moons lol.

@asmonet wow asmonet, we parctically said the same thing at the same time. touchè... ;)

@casheroo: We only called them moons because they were like ours. :)

@Anatelostaxus: Word.

@casheroo Moon, ifI recall correctly derives from the high saxon ‘Monan’ which was the name given to our moon. other moons observed in ancient astronomy of different cultures had their own names, just as stars did, and suspected suns.

@bea2345 there are plenty of nouns and adjectives that exist in chinese mandarin and japanese that do not exist in many indo-european languages.

@casheroo – Yeah, it does seem silly to me too. in English, when we started referring to other planet’s natural satellites as moons, why wasn’t a name given to ours, just as we named the others.

What about Clint Eastwood’s character in The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly and the horse in the America song, Horse With No Name?

@AstroChuck ahaah! good one, mate.

@AstroChuck – I always figured the horse with no name was actually just Wildfire who ran away after busting down it’s stall during the storm in that other song.

In the video game “Planetscape Torment” the main character was “the unnamed one”

That was one of the best RP Games ever.

Most car parts to me have no name. The what-cha-call-it is rattling.

Yeah!
What about that ‘thingamajig’ thingee…?
You know?!
Yeah that!

I’m sure there are plenty of stars with no names. If I recall, someone was selling naming rights to nameless stars.

There’s no name for that thing when 2 people are walking towards each other that come face to face and can’t decide who has the right of way so they both try to get out of the way but end up mimicing each others movements until one stops and agrees the other person needs to move first.

Other than that, the only things we have yet to name are things that we have not experienced yet. We’re pretty thorough about naming everything.

It’s too bad in a sense because once you name something, you end up attaching certain expectations of it by virtue of that name that may not be accurate.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic there is so a name for that. Annoying.

As for your second part, “whats in a name?” :P

…only that which is the point of all origin… it is without definition because there is only one and none besides- there is no purpose, reason, place, time for a name…

Yes, but I can’t say what it is.

Morning sickness that lasts all day.

Well, I was going to say the process I call the wind, but then I remembered, “they call the wind Mariah”

@Anatelostaxus – there are plenty of nouns and adjectives that exist in chinese mandarin and japanese that do not exist in many indo-european languages. That brings to mind a classic expression which I have not heard outside Trinidad and Tobago: tabanca – depression, sadness, over the ending of a relationship. One “has tabanca ”, as in “He have bad tabanca for she.”

@ubersiren http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperemesis_gravidarum?

I don’t follow any particular religion, but I do believe there is a force that is greater than us… I can not name it, nor can anyone else, because it is beyond our feeble comprehension and especially the limitations of language.

And they are finding new species all the time, which have no name until we discover them and name them. Thus new species that haven’t yet been discovered have no names.

And then there are the as yet undiscovered species that go extinct before we discover them, so not only do they not have a name they never had a chance at having a name, and we never even knew they existed.

There are some things that we do to others that have no real name. We try and name them and categorize them, but there is no name for many such actions. I am thinking specifically of World War II, when Nazis and others threw Jews in a church and burned it down with all the people in it. [See The Reader for a movie on this.] What kind of name can there be for such a thing?

@skfinkel: Maybe it’s more truthful to remain too aghast to name certain things. Speechless.

@asmonet : Duh = my memory.
Do you suppose I accidentally conflated YHWH with Popeye? Good Lord. As it were.

@skfinkel ‘Monstrous atrocity’ covers it, I think.

@casheroo : made up scientific names don’t count! :P jk… thanks. I learn something new every day!

Here’s an example: international political correctness, it’s real but there’s no official name yet. It’s seems to be politically correct to use the term ‘grammar nazi’ in the US. But it wouldn’t be politically correct internationally.

@mattbrowne – things may be a-changing. Some years ago I spent many hours trying to find a score, with lyrics, for the Horst Wessel Song. To learn that it had been banned throughout Europe for many years, and I found nothing in American sources. It is different now. I found a recording on YouTube about a year ago. Evidently not all Nazi stuff is politically incorrect.

We have no name for something that has no name. We need a word for that.

@bea2345 – Can you give an example of politically correct Nazi ‘stuff’?

@mattbrowne – Associated with the YouTube recording are other videos, such as Rudolf Hess giving a speech, a propaganda short (in colour) set to Orff’s Carmina Burina – of all things, Hitler addressing an SS gathering: such material was simply not available in the early days of the Internet. Then there are the comments to each item: Nazism is alive and well.

Great question :)

&bea2345 the horst wessel song along with all Nazi symbolism is still banned in Germany. The rest of Europe has never banned nazi stuff on the basic principle that having fought and died for certain freedoms (freedom of expresion for example) they weren’t about to let their government take those away. The fact that you see nazi stuff on you tube does not mean that it is now politiaclly correct.

@Lightlyseared – I stand corrected. Because a thing is said does not make it politically correct. But free speech has teeth: some of the comments that appear on YouTube make me very happy that the Allies won the war.

@bea2345 that is the price of freedom. The freedom of others to do things that you disagree with.

@bea2345 – Sadly, neo-Nazism is alive today. It exists in every country. Fortunately, in most countries the neo-Nazis are a small minority.

@mattbrowne @bea2345 @Lightlyseared Unfortunately still.. there are pubs here where I live as of now that freely express their appreciation and support to the nazi cause.

I am a Mixed Native American, Italian, etc..individual. So I’m not Aryan.
And I used to play in a couple death-black metal bands as a drummer.
In the very beginning we performed here, in a couple of these pubs. I didn’t know their nature yet.
I can let you imagine what happened.

’ I detest your ideas, but I’d be ready to die so to make them be heard freely ’ ... ever heard of that quote, by… I forget who…?

personally I still believe in the principle it expresses.. though only partially now.

Nazi, as many other de- ‘mentalities, are not to be considered among the list of the ’ allowed ’ things we can afford to be harvested on this ignorant planet.

Why? well, for a simple, logical reason…
It’s participation and the fueling of it’s practice are obstructive to the freedom of other individuals / groups / religions / cultures / ethnicities ..
Thus it cannot be tolerated and should be put down.

Every movement, mentality, mainstream bla bla bla or minor bla bla bla must perceive and consequentially act in accordance with the freedom of speech, expression, thought, profession of the vast number of others around it.
otherwise it is an end-to-itself, obstacle-to-others parasite.

I assume you guys think it similarly by the way you spoke..

You know the tiny, immeasurable space between your toenail and the actual spongy toe skin beneath it? I’m pretty sure there is no name for that infinitesimal void.