In memoriam of those we can’t remember
Posted on May 18th, 2008
Note to designers of memorials: Naming your road “Memorial Drive” won’t memorialize the people you’re trying to remember because who it memorializes won’t outlive the memories of those who are currently living, thus defeating the very purpose of memorializing them.
Let me put this differently: When I asked a roomful of Bostonians who “Memorial Drive” is dedicated to, no one knew. Several guessed correctly — Google tells us that it’s those who died in WW I — but isn’t the point of a memorial to obviate guesses and trips to Google? You might as well name it “Think of Something Parkway” or “Guess Who We’re Honoring Turnpike.”
Categories: marketing
I agree 100%. Bu, the phrase is,
in memoriam,
not memorium.
If people need to use latin, it should get checked out.
Mostly, I believe people should just say in memory of.
The city I lived in a while ago had a ‘war memorial’ which
was the hockey arena — but what war? I don’t know.
Rick
Here’s another take: Memorial Drive is no different than a headstone in a cemetery. The kids put up a headstone for Mom or Dad. Then the kids move away, or die, the grandkids lose interest, and no one ever visits the grave again. For eternity. So was it a mistake to put up the headstone for Dear Old Dad? The memorial is put up by the survivors, for the survivors. When the survivors are gone, it really doesn’t matter if subsequent generations don’t know - it wasn’t done for them.
Rick, Thanks. I’ve corrected the misspelling. Oops.
A response to MarkB: I recently found a gravestone put up by my great great great great grandfather for his child that died at age 9. It’s now in the middle of the woods on a hill in New Hampshire. It was extremely touching, especially since my own son was named after that grandfather, Nathaniel. At the time we named him, we did not even know the various twists and turns about how that name had passed down through the family.
By MarkB’s logic, we would never make comments on blogs etther. Who will care, even next week.
Well, they called WWI “The Great War”, too, because they didn’t think there would be another one to confuse it with.
Interesting. I went to MIT for four years and never once wondered why Memorial Drive was called that. I was too busy wondering why the bridge from MIT to Boston is called the Harvard Bridge.