Вопросы ономастики (Dec 2019)
Modern Russian Ergonymy: in Search for New Forms
Abstract
The article explores new naming patterns of ergonyms that have become increasingly productive in the urban sphere of public catering and take a peculiar form of communicative phrasing. Specifically, this is the case when nominators creatively employ the features of conversational speech for making a new type of “interlocutory” ergonyms that have a specific stylistic coloring, producing the effect of novelty and singularity. In this study, such names using the form of conversational turns produced by one speaker in a virtual dialogue with another are called “conversational ergonyms”. These are the names of restaurants, coffeehouses, burger joints, kebab houses, and other catering facilities such as “Where are you?,” “Honey, I’ll call you back,” “Eat, Simon. That’s Mom’s cooking,” “Some shish kebab?,” and others. Particular properties of colloquial speech give the name a particular appeal. Colloquial dialogue is a specific form of communication that consists of a series of utterances, each having its own situational relevance and affecting the reply that follows. The continuity of the dialogue makes it difficult to identify the content of text-conversations since a single turn is often not a self-consistent message. It is exactly the obscure message of these remarks made into a title that perplexes any citizen who encounters them. Each “conversational ergonym” has its own trick, a peculiarity that is key to the brand appeal. All studied units were classified based on the informativeness / non-informativeness of the names. Informative titles suggest a reference to food/eating indicating to the profile of the facility. Meanwhile, the under-informative nature of some conversational ergonyms is compensated by extending the title to include a generic marker that serves to explain its profile relevance.
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