Seattle Interactive is about the sweet spot where “technology, creativity, and emergent trends” intersect. That means entrepreneurs will be chatting with UX designers, and advertising creatives will be rubbing shoulders with crack Ruby coders. Interactive indeed! You’ve heard of SXSW? Well, this is like a nascent NXNW, but with no homicidal crop duster.

There are some really great speakers lined up. You’re probably thinking, “Who? Who?” Why, The Name Inspector himself is one of them, and there will be many others on stage that you’ll no doubt find even more interesting, such as Jeff Barr, Vanessa Fox, and  Sir Mix-A-Lot!

If you want to attend this conference (and you probably do) The Name Inspector can get you a deal. A really great deal, actually: $150 off the price of registration. Since the reg fee is only $350 to begin with, that makes this exciting inaugural event practically free. 200 smackers, to be specific. Just register using the code SICSPEAKER2011.

Let’s start with Robert Swartwood, a writer and the editor of Hint Fiction. He wrote the following review of Microstyle on Goodreads: “This is a must-read for anyone who cares anything for the English language”. Wow, that’s a lot of people. The Name Inspector hopes they all actually do read it. (He hopes they buy it first.) Robert also wrote, “Social network users and fans of Mad Men will especially appreciate it. And, of course, people who like hint fiction.” (Nice job getting a plug in for your own book, Robert!)

Then there’s Donna Seaman’s extremely perceptive and unassailably true review in Booklist (behind a paywall, but you can sign up for a free trial). She called Microstyle “cogent, interesting, and genuinely useful”. She also called it “sophisticated, richly referenced, and example-filled” and “distinctive, instructive, enjoyable, and inspiring”. That’s enough delightful adjectives to last The Name Inspector the rest of the year!

And of course there’s the very first review, which appeared in Library Journal. Maggie Knapp wrote, “For a book on writing short, this is surprisingly long”. Hmmm. OK, fair enough. The Name Inspector likes to think that Microstyle has a good cost-to-information ratio. He could go on about writing little all day!

In fact, some people love the name Zulily in ways The Name Inspector never expected. It recently came to his attention that a new mother announced last summer on the Baby Name Genie forum that she was naming her daughter Zulily Charlotte. The Baby Name Genie site displays lots of banner ads for Zulily, so most contributors to the forum knew exactly what inspired the name Zulily Charlotte, and the post triggered a bit of a diaperstorm. Some people expressed incredulity and derision: It’s just weird…Can you imagine being a grown woman with that name? Ridiculous…If I got introduced to an infant named Zulily I think I’d die laughing…I think Zulily is silly sounding, but it’s your baby…

Others, however, defended the name (though some were a bit…defensive about it): I know lots of people will hate it, but every time the ad pops up on the site, I think it’s cute…In my preggo hormones, I thought it was cute, too…This name is no worse than some of the crazy celebrity names out there that people choose to name their children, and I think it’s pretty…Zulily, hmmm–I like it actually! I like that you’re bein’ bold!…

Now, The Name Inspector never imagined Zulily as a name for a girl, and if he had a daughter of his own, he probably wouldn’t be as bold as this new mother. But oh, how he hopes the story of Zulily Charlotte is true! What better validation could a namer receive than to have a creation be chosen, from all the possibilities in the world, to name a new human being?

If you’re out there, Zulily Charlotte, The Name Inspector wishes you all the happiness in the world.

Speaking of the big time, The Name Inspector is pleased to announce that Lexiophiles has included this blog among the world’s Top 100 Language Blogs for 2009 (#28, to be specific). Thanks to those of you who voted! What’s more, The Name Inspector ranked #3 among blogs by language professionals. #1 and #2 are Separated by a Common Language and The Shifted Librarian, respectively. Fritinancy, a fellow namer’s blog and one of The Name Inspector’s faves, is #4. Given the arbitrary nature of such rankings, let’s call that a satisfying dead heat. The Top 100 list is heavily skewed toward blogs about language learning (which isn’t surprising, since that’s a focus of the Lexiophiles site), and doesn’t include such heavy hitters as Language Log, so it isn’t comprehensive. But The Name Inspector is honored nonetheless.