Naming/Listing with Various Subjects

About this post

About the technique: used when you want to name specific examples of a subject

Post in a nutshell: say you wanted to list specific examples of a subject - sheep, for example. You are responding to a directive 'name a sheep'. You can colour this directive with adjectival phrases or words. Example: 'name a famous sheep'. (Possible answer: Dolly.)

Naming/Listing with various subjects

The naming/listing method as described in this post can be used to list people to consider when asking questions such as 'what would this person invent?' or 'what would their perspective on this situation be?'. The method can also be used to make lists when using both general subjects and specific subjects (such as: times, places, ingers, things, objects, persons, activities, utterances and knowledge). The results can be added to a list of words that can be used as a random stimulus or can be used to help profile a subject.

Naming/Listing with a general subject

To name/list general subjects I pick a word at random to be my subject. I usually pick the word from directed free association results or prefix/suffix/catchphrase results. There are three levels to the listing of information. Here is an example using the subject 'entertainment' (chosen from directed free association results).

At the first level I set the challenge:

Name an entertainment

and list as many forms of entertainment as I choose. For example: dancing, television, cinema, street entertainer, juggler etc.

At the second level I create a challenge in the format:

Name an X entertainment

and I choose a word for the 'X' . In this example I choose 'abbreviation'. So this results in the challenge:

Name an abbreviation entertainment

One possible answer is 'Rock 'n' Roll'.

At the third level the challenge will be in the format:

Name an X abbreviation entertainment

and I choose a random word again. This time I pick 'London'. So the challenge reads:

Name a London abbreviation entertainment

The answer that springs to mind is 'Phantom' (abbreviation for Phantom of the Opera)

Naming/Listing with specific subjects

The core categories I use for this are:

Time, Place, Inger, Thing, Object, Person(s), Activity, Utterance and Knowledge

Example

With 'time' as an example, at the first level of naming I will set the challenge:

Name a time

For this I could say 'New Years Eve' (among unlimited options)

At the second level I pick a random word ('smile') and state the challenge:

Name a smile time

For this I could answer: having a baby, getting married, passing driving test, winning something, etc.

At the third level I pick another random word ('admit') and state the challenge:

Name an admit smile time

The third level is usually the most difficult challenge! For this I could say:

An occasion when you shouldn't have smiled/laughed but did
When someone in police custody admits to a crime
When you are admitted/given membership to a prestigious club etc.

The same approach is used when naming/listing with the other core categories: Place, Inger, Thing, Object, Person(s), Activity, Utterance and Knowledge

An example using the core category 'object'

Name an object: shoe
Name a scoring object: scoreboard at a cricket match
Name a date scoring object: calendar

An example using the core category 'activity'

Name an activity: cutting the grass
Name a scaring activity: hanging a pumpkin outside for Halloween
Name a game scaring activity: er, streaking

The naming/listing template

1) Name an X
2) Name an X X
3) Name an X X X


See also: Category Headings Profiling Strategy