That's Not My Name

I believe that I may have stumbled across a sociological phenomenon yesterday while filming some spots for a new ABC pre-school show.  It was a pretty physical gig, seeing me coerce four year olds to perform actions and smile at the same time, by example as much as instruction, but it was not from my eleven parentally permissed subjects that I observed this phenomenon - those kids i was contractually obliged to engage with, and they with me, so we had no need for chit chat.  Rather, it was from two little kids whose teachers had clearly not put them forward for the opportunity to be on telly, though from what i observed they both posessed the chutzpah to have pulled it off.

(For the record, I have forgotten a word which means 'put forward for'.   In primary school, you were 'somethinged' to be a candidate for the school captaincy (and you missed out because you were in the OC class and the general school population resented you for it... sniff).  I think my missing word starts with a 'p' and for the life of me (and google), I cannot think of it).

Ahem.  Back to the topic at hand...

In these two kids, the ones that I had no relationship with other than being a person welcome in their pre-school's playground, I observed the very beginnings of 'small talk', which is incredibly sweet and endearing when springing from the mouth of a little person.  The question they both asked was in essence the same, and I suspect may have been the same for all of us way back when for it's simplicity and assured result: 'What's your name?'. 

I know this question may be as much about curiousity as small talk, but from what I observed (adjusting imaginary glasses), this was kids wanting to spark up a conversation with an approved stranger, and this was the ONLY weapon in their artillery (unlike the more advanced members of the species who drop 'what have you been up to's like dead skin cells).  The beauty of the 'name' question is that it is almost assured a response... and most likely the same question back and then... *Ping*... it's a conversation.  What's more, once engaged, I felt the burden to continue the conversation using some of those other chit chat lines that I keep stored up there somewhere, such is the strength of the social norms that bind me as a member of society.

Generally, I suspect that names are a bit of an obsession for the very young anyway (I had to promise the neighbour's kid with whom I started the day that I would return at the end to tell her the names of all the other kids I was filming with) but this was small talk at it's most basic.  And amazingly, those of us more developed members of the species wouldn't think to kick off a conversation by simply asking a person's name for fear of being thought rude, but it is a question that I suspect served us well when we were just starting out.