Stylistics routledge English Language Introductions

Talking Heads
and 
Word of Mouth
. Not to mention: 
He She Him; It; Me and You;
Thee People; Them; The Who; Who Me;
and 
Which is Which
.
Another creative source of naming practice comes from the register we normally
associate with linguistic creativity: literary language. 
The Bards
and 
Poets
join with
the 
Romantics
and 
The Bloomsbury Set
, 
Dante
with 
Virginia Wolf
(sic), 
Keats
and
Milton
with 
Shakespear’s Sister
, to give us many 
Books
, 
Characters
and 
Chapter and
Verse
, much 
Culture
and 
Drama
, 
Pulp
and 
Poesie Noire
, 
Science Fiction
and 
Symbols
.
Here we find (
The
) 
Dubliners, Stephen Hero
and 
Finnegans Wake
, 
Catch 22, Erewhon,
Eyeless in Gaza, Fra Lippo Lippi, Godot, Dorian Gray, Hard Times, Look Back in Anger
,
the 
Bible
and 
Genesis
, the 
Odyssey
, 
Romeo and Juliet
, 
Uriah Heep
and 
Twelfth Night
.
And here we can identify many quotations: 
Fiat Lux, Have No Fury, Midnight Oil,
Hollow Men, This Mortal Coil
.
From the 
Fiction Factory
comes the ‘archetypal’ story immortalised in pop lyrics
themselves: 
Boys Meets Girl
on a 
Blind Date
after a 
Lonely Hearts
advert, 
Perfect
Strangers
hoping to be 
Loveless
and 
Lonesome No More
. After a 
Long Pursuit
followed
by the first 
Kiss
, a few 
Seconds of Pleasure
, 
Lover Boy
and his 
Platinum Blonde
are
bitten by the 
Love Bug
, full of 
Passion
and 
Naughty Thoughts
. With 
Terms of
Endearment
and 
Promises, Promises, Super Lover
the 
Seducer
with his 
Fatal Charm
makes his 
Valentine
, his 
Venus in Furs
, fall into the 
Tender Trap
. And 
So to Bed
.
Tempting Fate
, he agrees to a 
White Wedding
, with 
Silk
and 
Velvets
, and a 
Long
Honeymoon
, 
Any Day Now
. But 
Believe It or Not
soon 
Something Happens
: it’s a 
Love
11
111
11
111
S T Y L E A N D V E R B A L P L A Y
159

---

Gone Wrong
, no 
Paradise
ahead. 
Big Trouble
: he doesn’t like the 
Company She Keeps
;
he’s been 
Caught in the Act
with someone else. They become 
Passive Friends
. ‘
Admit
You’re Shit
’, the 
Iron Maiden 
says with 
Dirty Looks
. The 
Lover Speaks
: ‘
Oh Well
’ 
he concludes.
However, by far the most inventive and colourful naming, and the most produc-
tive, evokes the surrealism of science fiction, of fantasy and modernist poetry. The
roots of inspiration may well lie in the psychedelic visions of the hippy drug culture
of the 1960s, but the witty deviation of the incongruous collocations is eye-catching
and mind-bending, like the concepts of Metaphysical poetry. Undoubtedly there 
is the same kind of ‘poor man’s poetry’ that Eric Partridge and others have associ-
ated with slang, in names like the following: 
Angels in Aspic, Aztec Camera, Ballistic
Kisses, Bone Orchard, Dead Pan Tractor, Digital Dinosaurs, Electric Prunes, Exploding
Seagulls, Flaming Mussolinis, Fourteen Iced Bears, Green Telescope, Groovy Chainsaw,
Immaculate Fools, Laughing Apples, Lemon Kittens, Lovin Spoonful, Liquid Gold,
Magnolia Siege, Leather Nun, Mind Over Muesli, Pink Noise, Glass Ties, Prefab Sprout,
Reverend Sunshine, Sad Cafe, Singing Sheep, Soup Dragons, Spandau Ballet, Stone
Roses, Suede Crocodiles, Velvet Underground, Voice of the Beehive 
and 
Wishbone Ash
– a real 
Zodiac Mindwarp!
ISSUES TO CONSIDER
As a follow-up to Wales’s entertaining paper, readers interested in general issues
connected with the language of popular music might wish to consult Trudgill (1983)
and Simpson (1999). Both of these articles explore, from a sociolinguistic perspec-
tive, the singing styles adopted by pop and rock musicians. Keeping within the same
field of discourse, Steen (2002a) is an insightful anlaysis of metaphor in the lyrics of
Bob Dylan’s song ‘Hurricane’.
More suggestions follow:
❏
Wales’s article concentrates on a field of discourse that is transient by nature,
where fashions change almost overnight and where an artist’s popularity is
measured by weeks and not years. What then is the current ‘state of play’ as far
as naming techniques used in rock and pop go? Are the practices identified by
Wales still in evidence or are other techniques now used in the names of contem-
porary pop and rock groups? Do different decades have different characteristic
naming practices, for example?
❏
The array of stylistic strategies which Wales uncovers relates exclusively to pop
and rock bands, but how widespread are these naming strategies in other musical
sub-genres? Are the same tendencies found in the names of, for example, jazz
or folk groups? And if not, why not?
❏
Do the names of albums and singles receive similar stylistic treatment to those
of bands? Is there, for example, a correlation between having a ‘wacky’ band
name and giving an album a comparably wacky title? Or can there be too much
stylistic wackiness in pop music naming practices?
160
E X T E N S I O N
✪