Millenium Park will finally be open in Chicago....4 years late and over double the projected cost.

Now the question is, what to call the sculpture, created by the British sculptor, Anish Kapoor. As described in the Chicago Tribune, the sculpture is spectacular. Its silvery surface reflects a panorama of Michigan Avenue. Kapoor wants it called Cloud Gate. Since the sculpture is shaped like a bean, Chicagoans have begun to call it "The Bean." After all, says the editorial in the Tribune, who wouldn't want to see a 110-ton jelly bean?

Picasso didn't name his 1967 chicago sculpture because there was disagreement about what it represented. Is it the head of a woman? A Viking ship? A baboon? It is fondly called "The Picasso."

A name is powerful. Kapoor will name it what he wants. But, it will probably be called, "The Bean" by Chicagoans. In fact, the Tribune has already coined a word for it....Bean-spiration.

Does anyone know of other stories of naming buildings, pieces of art, or public displays?

It happens all the time over here!

The new HQ of the London Mayor is known as "The Gherkin". (Zucchini to you in the USA).

You can see a picture of it here and realise why it is so named!

It looks like Richard missed out the link from his earlier message. However, here are a couple of links to an article and a photo:
http://www.hughpearman.com/articles5/gherkin_b.html and
http://www.jwoodhouse.co.uk/london/lond14.htm

Whoops, so I did. I selected the link but forgot to paste it. Mind you, I still think it looks like a gherkin and I still don't like it!

Richard says, "The new HQ of the London Mayor is known as 'The Gherkin'. (Zucchini to you in the USA). You can see a picture of it and realise why it is so named!"

Interesting. To my mind a gherkin and a zucchini are two different things. A gherkin is a kind of pickle (AHD: "a small cucumber, especially one used for pickling"), while zucchini is another type of summer squash, of similar shape but with fruits that grow very large if you let them. Though some dictionaries characterize the zucchini a "small", that's not my gardening experience, and the web seems to bear me out. Example: "Of all garden produce, zucchini is the most prolific. Zucchini seem to magically triple in size overnight."

PS: Richard, if you dislike the Lord Mayor, could you say he's "the Jerk in the Gherkin"?

By the way, Chicago's Millenium Park opens today. While the project has been Chicago's black sheep for the past 4 years (over-budget and overdue), now people are finally beginning to like it. Here is a link.

Quote "...PS: Richard, if you dislike the Lord Mayor, could you say he's "the Jerk in the Gherkin"? ..."

No. Because the Lord Mayor doesn't live there. It's the Mayor (presently Ken Livingstone) who resides in the Gherkin. He is a jumped up little twit who has accrued massive power that he doesn't deserve and that he uses generally rather badly.

The post of Lord Mayor is an honorary and ancient one that gives its owner virtually no power but loads of pomp.

At a national level equivalent you could say that the Lord Mayor is roughly the same as the monarch and the Mayor roughly the same as the Prime Minister.

Interesting origins: zucchini, literally 'little gourds' in Italian (zucca 'gourd' < Latin cucutia 'gourd' < ? L cucutium 'a kind of hood'); gherkin (Cucumis anguria) Dutch gurken, pl. gurk, 'cucumber', short for agurk, possibly from Polish ogorek, perhaps from Late Greek aggourion < Gk aggouros 'kind of cake, tart' (from A-H).

It is of vast literary importance that we resolve whether a "gherkin" is a small fruit or a large one.

Until that is resolved, we cannot fully understand and appreciate the noted limerick beginning, "There once was a fellow named Firken / Addicted to jerkin' his gherkin."

As Mae West said:

"Is that a pickle in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?"

After resolving the above question, the fellow woke up the next day dill and lustless.

It is of vast literary importance that we resolve whether a "gherkin" is a small fruit or a large one.

There's a wonderful book called Nature and language: A semiotic study of cucurbits in literature by Ralf Norman and Jon Haarberg in 1980. Waxes eloquent over the fecundity of Cucurbitaceae. Anybody who's raised zucchini or almost any other kind of gourd knows whereof I speak.

From the Bakery Department comes this sage advice: To make pickle bread you have to start with a dill dough.

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Originally posted by KHC:
As Mae West said:

"Is that a pickle in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?"

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Not to quibble but I'm pretty sure that she was inquiring about there being a pistol in his pocket. Why would any man in Mae West's era (or any era, for that matter) carry around pickles like pocket change?

Dear God! Hic, Asa, Jerry, I love it!

Well, you see, CJ, after Ms West examined the pickle in his pocket, she decided that she'd prefer one of Peter Piper's wears, so the poor fellow went home and continued his usual habit of gherkin' off.

Our first thought upon observing the London Gherkin was from Shrek: "Do you suppose he's compensating for something?"

Sorry, CJ...

But I have always heard it as "a pickle in your pocket"...

I know it doesn't make sense... not literally...

But I'm not "dill"....

This is all too funny.

No, you're not dill! Between your ears is an active brine!

Quote "... "Do you suppose he's compensating for something?" ..."

Well, there have been few rumours about the man's private life - but he is known to keep newts. And, if he thus takes after Wodehouse's newt-fancying Gussie Fink-Nottle, then his success with the ladies would certainly be in doubt.

Purely in the interest of scholarly accuracy, let it be noted that West did not originate the pistol metaphor.

From the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose (1731-1791), the 1811 version being a "Reprint of the author's Lexicon balatronicum; a dictionary of buckish slang, university wit, and pickpocket eloquence (and now considerably altered and enlarged, with the modern changes and improvements, by a member of the whip club.)"

quote:

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RANTALLION. One whose scrotum is so relaxed as to be longer than his penis, i.e. whose shot pouch is longer than the barrel of his piece.

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So, Hic, care to expound on the difference between a scrotum and a fiscus? Don't they both carry valuables?