Bertha and Bertram Free try to find an appropriate name for their baby boy.

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Bertram Free knew that somewhere in the distant past his ancestors had another name, a longer name, a foreign-sounding name. He'd heard of immigrants coming through Ellis Island and having their names shortened and Americanized by the island's personnel. Maybe that was how his family became Free.

Too lazy or uninterested to work on his genealogy, Bertram decided to just accept his name and the fact that his ancestors had probably been freer when they got off the ship and saw the Statue of Liberty than they had been when they boarded the ship at a port with a difficult name to pronounce.

In time Bertram Free married Bertha Grundheimer, who seemed happy for some reason to give up her maiden name and become Free. She liked the sound of Bertha Free and never had any trouble spelling her new name to people in stores or on the phone.

Two years after they were married, the Frees welcomed their first-born son, a fine, happy, sturdy little guy whose name they could not determine. In the first hours after the baby's birth, Bertram and Bertha wondered what to call their son. Bertram? No. Fred? Felix? Forrest? Stephen? None of those names seemed right.

Bertha was convinced that there was a name somewhere in the universe that was meant for their little boy. Bertram declared that they did not have "world enough and time" to find the perfect name, when officialdom wanted a first name on the baby's birth certificate.

"Stop quoting that poet Andrew Marvell, Bertram. Is that the only poem you know?"

"I know lots of lines from poetry and a few whole poems. That line seemed appropriate."

"All right, Bertram, please don't sulk. Let's call him Scott."

"My best friend in third grade was Scott. Haven't seen him in years. Sounds good. I like the sound of it: Scott Free."

"Wait. Doesn't that mean something?"

"Does what mean something?"

"There's an expression, scot-free."

Oh, right, but it's spelled with only one 't.' That makes a big difference."

"Does it? Doesn't it mean that someone gets away with something? Doesn't sound good."

Bertram pulled out his trusty smart phone. "Yeah, getting away with something, no punishment. Let's see where it came from. Maybe from Scotland." He worked at his phone until he found his answer.

"Ha. That's interesting."

"So tell me."

"There's a Danish word skat, s-k-a-t, that means a tax. But it's pronounced like Scot in the name Scotland. So by the time the word got into English it meant that certain poor people got some kind of welfare or they didn't have to pay a tax, so they were called 'scot-free.'"

"If we name our baby Scott, won't people make fun of him?"

"We can give him a nice middle name to separate the Scott from the Free. Something like Andrew."

"Or Bertram. I like your name, sweetheart."

"Great. Scott Bertram Free. That'll work. Glad we had this productive conversation, even if we didn't have 'world enough and time.'"

Bertha started feeding her baby. She began to call him Scott. Somehow she knew that Scott Free would have a fortunate life. He wouldn't be blamed for anything nefarious. No jury would convict a defendant with that name. Their son would go through life Scott Free.

By Anita G. Gorman

From: United States

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