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“fur” was another troublesome word, one where my usage was right and all my teachers were wrong. “Scratch my fur,” I’d say when I wanted to get my head scratched. I assumed fur was the hairy stuff covering all mammals to a greater or lesser extent.
    However, I subsequently learned that I was wrong. All mammals have hair, but they don’t all have fur. When the hair grows in a mix of short, medium, and long fibers for the purpose of providing better insulation or weather-proofing, we call that multilayered hair fur. When hair grows in one length until shearing—like it does on humans or poodles—we call it hair. And when it emerges in oily, curly form from sheep, we call it wool. That, in a nutshell, is why mink coats, wigs, and sweaters look different. They are all made of hair, but they are not the same as my hair, though they may be similar to yours.
    Today, I can admit to that innocent oversight or misinterpretation without shame. Humans do not have fur.But dogs have hair. However, I’ve been calling the stuff on my head fur for so long that I’m not about to change now, even if it is technically incorrect. So fur it stays.
    Sometimes I surprise people with the names I give places, too. The Repair Center is a good example. We have one here in our town. The sign on the door says, UNIVERSITY HEALTH SERVICES . Some people call it that. They say, “I have a cold. I’m going to head over to Health Services and get something for it.”
    To me, that whole passage is nonsensical. First, they are not heading over there to get something
for
the cold. They are heading over there to get something to
do away
with the cold. Their goal for the cold is not betterment, as “get something” implies. It’s eradication. Elimination. Extermination. Why don’t they come out and say so?
    Second, the idea of going to anything called Health Services sounds funny. The term doesn’t describe what the place does. I’ll bet fewer than one percent of the people who walk into that place do so in search of health service. The other ninety-nine percent are seeking repair. Cure of disease. Stitching of wounds. Setting of broken limbs. Removal of warts. To me, those are all repair operations. That’s why my name for the place makes perfect sense. It is a Repair Center.
    I knew that from the moment I first walked though the doorway many years ago. Why can’t other people see it that way? Instead, nypicals often choose an arbitrary or incomplete name for the Repair Center. They say something like “doctor’s office.” It is a mystery to me howanyone could look at a three-story structure that obviously houses a few hundred people and call it a mere doctor’s office. After all, the word “office” usually refers to a single room. At best, it’s a small structure containing a few rooms, one of which is the office proper.
    I could understand if outsiders said, “I need to visit my doctor. His office is in the Health Services Building.” That would be correct, but no one seems to say that. I wonder why.
    And then there are the names I give other people. When my newborn brother came home from the hospital, I watched him really closely and listened to him. I was eight years old, but when looking at my new brother, I remembered myself at an earlier age. I wondered what he would do, and what uses I might find for him as he got bigger. My mother told me his name was Chris, but I said that to him repeatedly and he never responded. He just kind of gazed with a blank expression.
    My dog knew his name. I’d say, “Hey, Dog,” and he’d look up at me. Dog was a perfectly sensible name, because he
was
a dog. I always knew he recognized his name, since he wagged his tail whenever I said it. And sometimes, he barked. My little brother didn’t do any of those things. I could say “Chris” or anything else all day long and he just lay there and made little snorts.
    So that’s what I named him. Snort. My mother objected right away, but I