What the heck is Tagracadabra?
Tagracadabra.com is the official website of White Feather Interpreting, LLC,
DBA White Feather Tales and DBA SHARP Shooter Institute, the firearms arm of our business. If you’re interesting in more information about that, check out Sharpshooter Institute.
What a daunting task it was to come up with a catchy name for a website—or, for that matter, a catchy header image. I know mine looks like a homicidal weed, but really, it’s a magic wand.
Choosing names for other things is so much simpler. If a painting of someone called Mona Lisa begs a sobriquet, any fool can come up with one (although I understand her name was really Lisa Gherardini). It would be equally unchallenging to decide on a title for a book about someone called Robinson Crusoe or for an anthology about the poems of Emily Bronte. But when the site is designed to discuss a diverse collection of topics, the task becomes more complex.
I mulled over numerous possibilities and ran them by friends, whose aggregate response was, “Hmmmm”. I also experimented with a variety of acronyms, all of which were un-imaginative and un-catchy. A couple, Access Software Systems (ASS) and Communication Resources for Access Providers (CRAP) were most decidedly not options.
In the wee hours of one morning the word “tag” popped into my head and took root. After all, we interpreters and alt format specialist often tag team, and an author must tag team with editors, illustrators, publishers, and a host of other support specialists. Lots of “tag” domains were taken so I was stuck on tagsomething for weeks (tagsomething.com was available but just no—I do have standards).
Then I read a fascinating article about Amazon. Did you know that its founder Jeff Bazos almost named his business “Cadabra”, as in abracadabra? When his lawyer misheard the word as “cadaver”, he wisely dropped the idea.
The magic concept appeals to me. Yes, I know – interpreting, producing alt format, writing, are not really magic. They’re a combination of skill and sweat and commitment. Yet, they’re also a bit of magic. Of course some cad already registered abracadabra.com. So I birthed Tagracadabra from the womb of my mental drawing board. By the way, there’s also a tagracadabra.net and a tagracadabra.org, but those are just reserved in case some other cads want to grab my amazing creation for their own).
I’m guessing you’re tongue-tripping over the name Tagracadabra. I can barely pronounce it or spell it myself. Too bad I’m not as wise as Jeff and therefore did not drop the Tagracadabra idea when I heard the hosting company techs mumble, “What did you say? Tagabada? Bagataba? Or my favorite, Baghdadaba? I also paid no heed to all the website gurus who say a domain name should be short, descriptive, and easy to use. You just can’t always do what you should (if you’re interested in other “should’s” I challenge, head on over to Gadfly Journal).
So welcome to Tagracadabra—all you interpreters, writers, readers, accessibility advocates, book lovers, parents, children, and anyone passionate about communication and language. Drop in, stay awhile, contribute, or simply read. Come as you are and do as you like, except for dumping spam or random nastiness. There is already more than enough of that on the internet.
A bit about White Feather Interpreting, LLC
As White Feather Interpreting, LLC wears several hats, you may be confused about our services.
The parent company White Feather Interpreting, LLC offers professional sign language interpreting services, especially in legal settings. We hold direct contracts with all the local judicial circuit courts and the U.S. Court at the Federal level. We also have business relationships with State Attorney and Public Defender offices, several law firms, and some legal interpreting agencies, for whom we interpret depositions, court ordered competency evaluations such as 730 evaluations, attorney-client meetings, etc.
In every venue, we adhere strictly to the NAD/RID Code of Professional Conduct, to all ethical requirements of our contracts, and to best practices in the field of legal ASL interpreting.
White Feather Interpreting, LLC is not an agency. We do not employ or contract with sign language interpreters. The only employee and interpreter is me, Julie K Balassa.
White Feather Interpreting, LLC also holds a Federal Firearms License (FFL) and is registered as a Special Occupational Taxpayer (SOT), enabling us to procure and sell firearms and related items regulated under the National Firearms Act (NFA), including suppressors.
Accessibility
This website was designed to be accessible. It includes options to increase the font size and switch to high contrast. I have also tested it with screen-reading software. If you encounter an accessibility problem, please let me know so I can fix it forthwith.
The End, Forthwith
I learned the word “forthwith” from my favorite TV series Blue Bloods,
where the characters use it at least once every couple of minutes to get things moving along quickly. Seems like the perfect word to end this long rant and move along.