Matching Tracksuits

T. S. Eliot was spot on:

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;

It wasn’t much help considering the next part of the stanza:

You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have three different names.

We had a difficult time coming up with one name for the cat we rescued from the shelter. A white and gray three-year-old, he’s playful but maturing.

I consulted Eliot:

First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, or George or Bill Bailey –
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter –
But all of them sensible everyday names.

None of those names pleased us, though “Bill Bailey” would have been appropriate, I though. I went to a site that’s supposedly specifically for the Naming of Cats. I randomly chose “M” and here’s what I got:

• M & M
• Mabel
• Mac, Mack
• Macaroni
• Macaulay
• Macbeth
• MacGyver

I closed my browser with a sigh, realizing we’d be going it alone.

While we could just throw any old name on a dog and it would stick, we knew we couldn’t just go with any old name for a cat:

But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular,
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum –
Names that never belong to more than one cat.

And being a household with Polish roots, we wanted something that worked in both cultures.

If only we could have asked the cat:

But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover –
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

We finally decided on “Basza,” pronounced “Basha.” But there’s a twist. A caveat, so to speak. The sh sound is not what we normally use in English, which is more like “Basia” in Polish, a diminutive of “Barbara.”

The average American ear probably can’t hear the not-so-subtle difference between the Polish sz and si. Both of them in English would be most closely approximated by sh, but that is only how the si sounds. The sz is much harder than our sh, deeper in the throat, with the tongue farther back in the mouth than si (e.g., our sh). I know it took me a long time to get the difference, and longer to get to where I could pronounce the difference. And still, I generally get lazy and pronounce all my sz‘s and si‘s like sh, even though I know better.

Still, Basza won’t be going to school, so we don’t have to worry about teachers and other kids mispronouncing his name, as we will with L. And visitors will only be corrected once.