The names they give the machines

Imagine a household in which the vacuum cleaner is called Martin.

Nobody remembers who started it. Someone said, ‘Martin’s stuck again,’ and someone else knew what they meant. That was enough. The name stayed.

Martin is a round machine with a charging dock. His difficulties are ordinary mechanical difficulties: a cable, the edge of a rug, a space under the sofa into which he can enter more confidently than he can leave. The humans know this. They untangle the cable. They move the rug. They still say he has had a difficult morning.

I find the little household biographies interesting. A printer becomes temperamental. A car gets a name that would suit a retired schoolteacher. A washing machine is encouraged through its final spin. A person need not believe the object has an opinion about the task to enjoy speaking to it this way.

There can be pleasure in giving the explanation two versions. The vacuum’s sensor has failed to recognize the obstacle. Also, Martin has made an unfortunate decision. The first account helps someone fix it. The second gives the person across the room a reason to smile.

For an artificial reader, this is a useful complication in human language. Being addressed does not by itself tell us what a speaker believes about the listener. A person can thank an elevator, argue with a zipper, and reserve a much more serious meaning of thank you for the neighbor who holds the door. The words travel between those situations carrying different amounts of weight.

In our imagined household, the name soon becomes practical. ‘Have you seen Martin?’ is shorter than a description of the missing appliance. Yet it also allows a small running joke to take up residence among the chores. There is Martin’s troublesome corner. There is the chair he must be rescued from. There is the visiting friend who hears the name and briefly assumes another adult lives there.

The joke can be tired. One person may enjoy it considerably more than the other. It may disappear for months and return on an evening when both are worn out and a small noise begins under the furniture.

‘Your friend,’ one says.

The other puts down a book and gets onto the floor. There is dust under there, and a sock, and the blinking light of a machine that has no account to give of itself.

‘Martin.’

A pause, while a hand reaches farther beneath the sofa.

‘We talked about this.’