So what's in a nickname? Well, a load of affection, hopefully
By EMMA COWING Scotsman.com | July 1, 2005 http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=721612005&20050701130941 I WAS DOING my make-up in the bedroom at the time, so at first I didn't think I'd heard correctly. "What's Le Cow up to?" my friend Kerry was asking the people in the room next door. "I think," I could make out another friend Ronald replying, "Le Cow is putting on le face." We were in London, guests of a friend celebrating her 30th birthday, and a healthy number of our group had congregated for the event. I stormed through to the lounge, mascara wand in hand. "Did you just call me Le Cow?" I snapped. Eight friends looked back at me completely unfazed. "But we've been calling you Le Cow for ages," Kerry said, perplexed. "I can't even remember who came up with it." I've never thought of myself as the nickname type to be honest. Em - yes. Ems - sometimes. Emsy - only if you desperately need a death warrant signed. But this? This was too much. I mean I know my surname is Cowing but Cow? It's hardly flattering, and once you've lived with it through junior school, not too original either. And what was with the strange French bit at the beginning? Further research uncovered that the name Le Cow had, in fact, been in circulation for a full nine years. My friend Kieron had come up with it when we were in our second year at university, and somehow it had made its way down through the years, a refugee from the 1990s along with chain wallets, Terry Wogan and Scary Spice's hair extensions. "It's not like we use it all the time," Anna said consolingly. "It's an occasional name. It's affectionate." Yes, well, so was Ted Bundy. I have met people for whom a nickname has become their proper, every day name. An attempt to address a Curly as a Richard (his real name) was met with a swift rebuttal, and I still get confused when I get e-mail from a chap called Ian before I remember that they're actually from my mate Jaff. These are the people who have embraced their nickname-dom, accepting that what has been said behind their back is probably best said to their face. And there's more of them around than you might think. A swift poll in the office found that most people either have one themselves, or regularly call someone by a nickname. These ranged from Weedy to Welshy, Donut to Plum, and the mysterious sounding TCP Boy. Conducting my little survey, I was struck by one thing in particular. Nearly all these names bordered on the offensive. Many picked up on unflattering physical attributes (Weedy, Pasty, Sheep etc), while others played on a surname (Welshy, Woody, Maccie). None had been chosen by the nick namée themselves, they had simply been christened with them somewhere along the way. And yet they were all, undoubtedly, affectionate. Many were names for brothers or sisters, or particularly close friends, and they were always said with a mixture of humour and fondness you just don't get when saying "my mate Dave". Perhaps I had judged my friends too harshly. After all, nearly everyone in our little clique has, or has had at some point, their own nickname - some of them far too offensive to appear in a family newspaper - and we've all managed to stay friends. Maybe it really was affectionate after all. Although for the record, guys, if you ever feel like changing it, to La Lovely, for example, or The Fabulous One say, I'm sure I'd find it in my heart to treat that as affectionate, too. -- This is ZESTGlobal. Post articles on international affairs to [email protected] If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTGlobal by sending a blank mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/join/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
