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How pet names for everyday things make life a teeny bit more interesting.

Things need names. The iPad - someone named that. Ford's Ka, LG's Chocolate and (possibly, maybe) Kiwi Man & Van all had name brains behind them. As a wordy company, we do a lot of naming and it's much harder than it sounds. Especially when most phone companies want space-age names like Infinity and Galaxy, while anything from breweries to banks want the name Freedom.

But away from the nine-to-five, we have free rein. And no trademark lawyers to worry about. So we rename things to make the everyday more interesting. Our folder for the admin bits and bobs that come with running a business is called The Folder Of Extreme Importance. The tax folder (zzzzz) is called Taxi!

It's not just me (although I do I have an extreme case of renaming). One of my friends calls her foodmixer the whizzer (another calls it the magic stick), and her hand-held vacuum cleaner is thehooche - no I don't get it either. Kids rename things all the time, too, and their names stick. A friend's daughter aimed high as a littl'un and renamed Hyde Park, High Heels Park. Not even the Queen's land is safe. In my family, when we were little and my mum made a cake, she'd ask me and my brother if we wanted to lick the lickers (ie the whisks) once the cake mix was ready. I can't call whisks anything else now, which can be embarrassing.

But we don't think you should stop when you're a grown-up. Renaming everyday things adds a bit of sparkle to the mundane. If you look for the icon for the web browser on my computer, you'll find it says procrastinate, go on. The folder that hides the games on my iPhone is called playaway. And the contacts in my phone are a crop of strange names. Do I know the world's tallest man? No, but he claimed he was, so that's his title. Some are more straightforward: a guy called Damian runs a deli, so he's Damian Deli, naturally. It makes finding phone numbers a challenge: you need a good memory because alphabetical order by first name gets you nowhere.

You don't need a pet to have a pet name. Get creative - rename those everyday objects, boring programs on your computer and the folder with your bank statements in. Let us know what you come up with, or tell us the pet names you already use for the whatsits and oojamaflips.

Det er Molly MacKay fra We All Need Words, der står bag teksten. Og synes du det lyder sjovt, skulle du overveje en smuttur til London for at lege med. Mollys arrangement er d. 22. januar 2011 på The School of Life.