naming the new civic
sad as it is, my previous vehicle never received a proper name, and more often than not i referred to it as “the hatchback.” naming a vehicle is a tricky thing, and i have a suspicion that my new car will become simply “the civic.” the paradox with naming vehicles is that it’s hard to force a name to stick, but unless purposeful action is taken to give it a name it will often end up without one. perhaps i’m spoiled; it’s hard to beat the titles bequeathed on the various vehicles i was around in high school: “the drogenwagen,” “the ass car,” “the beastmaster,” “the contougl,” and “the [hawaiian mafia] staff car” (more often referred to, by me at least, as “the SHO,” which is not half bad either).
generally, there are a few approaches to naming cars. the first is the boring route of simply referring to a vehicle by its model or make (e.g. “the civic”). applying a variation to this can give the car a proper name, as in the case of the “beastmaster” (a buick roadmaster). another good example of using the model name was andy’s “contougl,” a ford contour gl so named because the “r” in its name on the trunk fell off. the full make and model name of this car is “honda civic coupe ex.” what can you do with that? “civic duty?” “civic pride?” the latter, at least, makes me think too much of lee greenwood for me to use such a title on any sort of regular basis. the fact that the car is a honda makes me think of “e. honda;” this car is too small for that name, but you can bet if i was getting an element i’d give the car that name in a second. with the word “coupe,” i can only think of “coup de grace,” and that doesn’t really do anything for me. referring to the car as “the E.X.” or “the ex” is somewhat boring, and there’s no good way to “pronounce the letters,” as i did with the brendan’s (and subsequently andy’s) LHS (”the la hahz”).
many car names are given because of a single feature of the vehicle. the “drogenwagen” (”drugmobile,” for those that can’t speak broken, high school level german) was so named for its abnormally dark tinted windows. many cars are given names based on color (e.g. the orange pickup truck from high school), but these aren’t necessarily very interesting; that would make the new civic “the green car.” i suppose i could call it “slither,” or “envy.” as for other available features to work from, this car has a sunroof/moonroof, which is a first for me. i feel like there’s something to be done with that, something like “the mooninite,” or “moon unit two.” i could always find a decent bumper sticker to slap on the car, a la the “hawaiian mafia” sticker.
some car names attempt to put to words the je ne sais quoi of the vehicle. “the ass car,” though a somewhat vague and all encompassing title, was a fitting name for the vehicle and a good example of this sort of name. often, these names rejoice in the accumulated flaws of an old car; this civic isn’t yet old enough for anything like that. a variation on this approach is to be somewhat anthropomorphic and give the car a “person’s name” based on its perceived “personality,” but, again, this is something that would take more time to nail down. on the upside, that means that if nothing really sticks now, there’s still a possibility that the car could grow into a name.
realistically, the chances are that nothing will stick at this point in time, and i’ll just end up referring to it as “the civic.” ah well.