Sunday, August 18, 2013

Names, Professional Wrestling, and Capitalization

This has actually been cracking me up for quite some time, and I have a spare moment right now, so I'm going to mention it.  Even though most of you won't laugh as much as I have been for quite some time.

One of the people I get to deal with at Asmodee has their e-mail set up with their last name in all caps, so the e-mail I receive is from Firstname LASTNAME.

As you may recall, I am one of those folks who enjoys professional wrestling - and not just American-style wrestling.  I especially like Japanese and Mexican wrestling.  Japanese because the wrestlers are over-the-top CRAZY, and Mexican because their high-flyers are amazing.

In professional wrestling culture, there are really two broad personalities of wrestler - Babyfaces ("Faces") and Heels.  Boiled down to the most basic of descriptions, it's Good Guys and Bad Guys.

In Japan, they often use our alphabet in addition to one (or more) of the three writing systems they normally use.  To help people who either don't watch regularly or who are new viewers, they will often put the last name of their heels in ALL CAPS.

So every time I get an e-mail from this person @ Asmodee, I giggle just a little bit. Because her e-mail advertises to me that she is a Heel.  I laugh just a little bit, and then I go on.

EDIT: 1/7/14
It was called to my attention this morning that I was unclear about why I giggle at this. To clarify: It is because - as near as I can tell - there are no heels working for Asmodee. As I've probably mentioned a thousand times here (and elsewhere) the team (both full-time employees and demo crew) is a large collection of the neatest people it has ever been my pleasure to deal with. So the irony of someone who is not a heel representing themselves as such (even to the tiny tiny subset of gamers who are fans of Japanese wrestling) makes me laugh.

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