nick·name
a name added to or substituted for the proper name of a person, place, etc., as in affection, ridicule, or familiarity.
Sports have always had nicknames for their athletes. To wit:
Mordecai “Three Fingers” Brown
Hall of Fame pitcher who lost his index finger in a feed chopper on the farm. He could do things with a baseball no one else could because of it.
Bill “The Owl Without The Vowel” Mlkvy
He played for the Temple Owls and obviously had no vowel in his last name. Ergo …
Charles “The Round Mound of Rebound” Barkley
His heft also earned him the moniker of (my favorite nickname):
Sir Cumference!
Of course, nicknames have also been applied to various political SNAFUs ever since Watergate. All you have to do is put “gate” on the end. Yesterday, this was the headline:
Syria-gate? WikiLeaks' latest drop of secret files.
Syria-gate. Really?
And, of course, the two cutest names of the bunch which will be with us throughout the election season:
Obamacare and Romneycare
Kindly refrain from comments on that one way or the other with this post even though your passions are no doubt aroused …
I wish they’d just stick with athletes.
Paul “Blackwatertown” Waters brought us the topic this week. See what the other LBC characters have come up with by clicking their links on the right hand side of the page.
My kids quickly tired of hearing my husband say of Karl Malone, "Know why they call him the "mailman"? He delivers!" :)
ReplyDeleteYes, so many of them are overused!
DeleteI am not familiar with your sportsmen, but the nicknames seem to fit well.
ReplyDeleteWhen you just have three fingers, it's kind of a gimmee! By the way, a gimmee is a putt in golf so short the other person just gives it to you and I wasn't sure if it was used in Ireland.
DeleteDo we really care??? I always wondered where Randy Johnson got the name Big Unit.
ReplyDeleteshackman, you're right, we don't care.
DeleteWow, makes me want to go look up Babe Ruth! I hate the nicknames in politics, but Tricky Dick was one of my father's favorite names for Nixon. He had a certain glimmer in his eye every time he used the nickname and it leaves me with a great memory of my dad.
ReplyDeleteYep, Tricky Dick and Slick Willy for Clinton. :)
DeleteI'm with Delirious. My late husband was a mailman; he quickly tired of the quip about Karl Malone. Someone was always saying that to him…
ReplyDeleteThinking they were the first, being original.
Blessings to you consort - Maxi
Sounds like the stupid type of thing I'd say to someone thinking I had to be the first! LOL
DeleteOur sports icons, primarily cricketers too get nicknames. Jammy for one who liked jam on his toast, Jumbo for a bowler whose deliveries would soar up like a jumbo jet, Flick for a batsman who could make the ball speed to the fence with just a flick of his wrist and perfect timing and so on.
ReplyDeleteOur local languages have hilarious nicknames for our political worthies too. They however loose their punch in translation into English.
Yes, so much of nicknames is idiomatic!
DeleteSir Cumference... I like that one. Clever.
ReplyDeleteAs for the gimme. I presume you've heard this story or something similar:
A father, son and grandson went to the country club for their weekly round of golf.
Just as they reached the first tee, a beautiful young blonde woman carrying her bag of clubs approached them.
She explained that the member who brought her to the club for a round of golf had an emergency that called him away and asked the trio whether she can join them.
Naturally, the guys all agreed.
Smiling, the blonde thanked them and said, “Look, fellows, I work in a topless bar as a dancer, so nothing shocks me anymore. If any of you wants to smoke cigars, have a beer, bet, swear, or tell off-color stories or do anything that you normally do when playing a round together, go ahead. But I enjoy playing golf, consider myself pretty good at it, so don’t try to coach me on how to play my shots.”
With that the guys agreed to relax and invited her to drive first. All eyes were fastened on her shapely behind as she bent to place her ball on the tee. She then took her driver and hit the ball 270 yards down the middle, right in front of the green.
The father’s mouth was agape. “That was beautiful,”he said.
The blonde put her driver away and said, “I really didn’t get into it and I faded it a little.”
After the three guys hit their drives and their second shots, the blonde took out a nine iron and lofted the ball within five feet of the hole. (She was closest to the pin.)
The son said, “Damn, lady, you played that perfectly.”
The blonde frowned and said, “It was a little weak. I left a tricky little putt.” Then she tapped in the five-footer for a birdie.
Having the honors, she drove first on the second hole and knocked the hell but of the ball, and it landed nearly 300 yards away smack in the middle of the fairway. For the rest of the round the statuesque blonde continued to amaze the guys, quietly and methodically shooting for par or less on every hole.
When they arrived at the 18th green, the blonde was three under par, and had a very nasty 12-foot putt on an undulating green for a par.
She turned to the three guys and said, “I really want to thank you all for not acting like a bunch of chauvinists and telling me what club to use or how to play a shot, but I need this putt for a 69 and I’d really like to break 70 on this course. If any one of you can tell me how to make par on this hole, I’ll take him back to my apartment, pour some 25-year-old Royal Salute Scotch in him, fix him dinner and then show him a good time the rest of the night.”
The yuppie grandson jumped at the thought. He strolled across the green, carefully eying the line of the putt and finally said, “Honey, aim about 6 inches to the right of the hole and hit it firm. It will get over that little hump and break right into the cup.”
The father knelt down and sighted the putt using his putter as a plumb. “Don’t listen to the kid, darlin’, you want to hit it softly 10 inches to the right and run it left down that little hogback, so it falls into the cup.”
The old gray-haired grandfather walked over to the blonde’s ball, picked it up and handed it to her and said,
“That’s a gimme, sweetheart. Your car or mine?”
I love that one!
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