Monday, November 22, 2004

UGH: Relevance & Irreverence

Let me open my first real entry by explaining why I am UGH. Or more properly lowercase: ugh. A quick look around the 'net will produce a gob-smackingly high volume of pages that reference this little three-letter word. Understandable, really, as it is as useful and succinctly descriptive as it is phonetically blunt.
The Miriam Webster online dictionary defines the word this way:

Main Entry: ugh
Pronunciation: often read as '&g or '&[k] or '&
Function: interjection
-- used to indicate the sound of a cough or grunt or to express disgust or horror

I used a similar definition on a t-shirt I produced ages ago and on business cards and letterhead for my freelance work. I have used ugh as a name for my company (registered as a sole proprietership in the province of Ontario, Canada) and as a personal monogram for about fifteen years now. I came to use it through a round-about joke that I shared with my Aunt Nancy many moons ago...
(This is where the image should go wavy and zoopy harp music should play indicating the fade to: FLASHBACK!)
I used to work for my Aunt Nancy in Toronto's Kensington Market at a store called, "Get Dressed". One dreary Saturday afternoon as we looked out into a damp street devoid of the usual bustling crowds of Bohemian bargain hunters, I indicated the vacant storefront across the street.
"I think I am going to open a store over there," I told my Aunt.
"Oh," she asked, "And what are you going to sell?"
"The exact same stuff as you," I replied, "But at half the price."
"Oh Really?"
"Yes. And I will open an hour later and come to work in my pajamas and every morning I will look across at your store as I drink my coffee and I will say ugh."
"Ugh?"
"Yes," I went on, "In fact, that is what I will call the store. Ugh. Just ugh. But not the word, just the sound. And when I answer the phone I will just go: uuuughhghghghghgh. Actually, I will hire somebody to answer the phone and just do that. That will be their whole job."
My dear Aunt Nancy was not especially impressed. Or concerned.
Later in life, as I began to do freelance and contract work, I wanted to open a business banking account. To this end, I went to the appropriate Ministry office to establish myself as a sole proprietorship. As I waited in line to file my paperwork, I was still deciding on a name but by the time my turn came up, I still hadn't chosen one. Remembering that day at the store, I wrote down: Lowercase u, lowercase g, lowercase h. That's it. When the clerk told me that for an extra five dollars I could search the provincial records to see if anybody was using the name, I suggested that I probably didn't need the service. The clerk read my choice and snickered, "No, I guess not."
I have been using it in various capacities ever since. I even reverse-engineered the acronym to come up with a longer name: Underground Graphics House. Appropriate because I have for many years been working out of my parents' basement, and later a basement apartment and an apartment that was half underground. Now I have a house and I am happily above ground, but I still like the ugh and I decided to use it for the name of my blog.
Additionally, I called myself ughman on the NTN trivia game that is played with radio frequency keyboards in bars across North America. I haven't played for a while, but when I did I got onto the national scoreboard from time to time, so drunks across the continent have seen my name up there on the idiot box.
Now that I have made something of an introduction, I will carry on with (hopefully) more interesting entries.

1 Comments:

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7:55 p.m.  

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