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Why do we have Noms? Derivation of the term
"Nom De Clavier":
The term 'Nom de Clavier' is based on a play on words. We are all
familiar with the term 'Nom de Plume' or pen-name (based on the French word for
'pen'.) Since our access to DorothyL involves use of a computer and we use the
computer keyboard instead of a pen to write our messages to DorothyL, we
replaced the word for 'pen' by the term used in music for a keyboard: 'clavier'.
Thus, a Nom de Clavier, or Keyboard Name.
Guidelines for Adoption
of a Nom:
As
the practice of using Noms became more wide-spread some guidelines and a
registration procedure became necessary so as to avoid conflicts. The guidelines
are very simple.
The nom may represent a person, either
fictional or real, or an animal (e.g., Giant Rat of Sumatra) or a thing (e.g.,
Tailor Paul, a bell in Dorothy L. Sayers' The Nine Tailors) or a concept (e.g.,
The daughter of time, i.e., Truth from Elizabeth Tey's novel Daughter of Time)
or even a word (e.g., the Latin word 'placet' by which Harriet Vane accepts Lord
Peter Wimsey's proposal of marriage in Dorothy L. Sayers' Gaudy
Night).
The nom may come from books or movies or TV
or radio or the comics or the Internet or from any other medium that may appear
in the future, but it should always have some relationship to a
mystery.
The name of a living person may NOT be chosen
as a nom. You can choose to be known as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Dorothy L.
Sayers or Ellis Peters, but NOT as Elizabeth Peters or Jan Burke or Sue Grafton
or Sara Paretsky or Parnell Hall or Nancy Atherton. Only they are entitled to
use their names, whether or not they are subscribed to DorothyL.
It is possible for different people to choose
noms related to different aspects of the same person, e.g. a maiden name
(Harriet Vane) and a married name (Lady Peter Wimsey). However, such a practice
is subject to confusion and every attempt should be made to avoid such
variants.
One's own name cannot be a nom unless it is
used as the name of a character in some mystery-related medium.
Registration of
Noms:
There is
NO obligation for a subscriber to DorothyL to adopt a Nom. Some subscribers do;
many others don't. However, if you do decide you want to adopt a Nom it is a
good idea to first check the most current Noms de Clavier list to see if the Nom
of interest to you has already been adopted.
To obtain a copy of the list send the
message: get nomsde.clavier to
listserv@listserv.kent.edu
The list is updated about every six
to eight weeks and announcements of each update are sent to Dorothyl along with
a list of the NEW noms added in that update.
Once you have determined that the nom you
want is available, send a message directly to mailto:ulcjh@acsu.buffalo.edu Include
your real name, the nom you want, and a brief description of the nom (if
fictional character, give the author, plus any other characterizing details). Do
NOT send your request to DorothyL! If you change your email address you do not
need to inform Judith as she does not include email addresses in the Noms
list.
DorothyL - the official website
last updated: 6/24/00