Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Terms of Endearment


I don't know when I started this silly 'pet name' thing. Clearly as I approached the age of Grannydom. Australians are famous for their nicknames and we shorten or lengthen or create something completely out of the blue rather than call someone by their correct name. Clare is Clarence, ClareBear, Baino (which causes confusion for obvious reasons) Adam is AB, Ads, Chicken Lips et al. I'm Baino, Nell, Nellie, Hells, Bubbles, Elephant Brains and Ma! Stressany is constantly called the 'Buzzard' or 'Dahlsey' by BabyBro in a totallly tongue in cheek fashion, who alternatively is known as Dunny, Poider or Baldy. Babysis and ThePlummer are for God's sake, Doo Doo, Gockle, Twon and Twonneth (yes she's mad). Hannah is Hannahbanana of course or Winky. Rebecca is RED or Becs. James seems to have escaped lightly with Jimmy. Even my dear departed was known as Choo-Choo . . a derivative of that great Mexican golfer Chi-Chi Rodruguez. My best friends refer to each other as "Bogth" - dunno where that came from either!

When my nephew Jack was little, he was convinced that his Grandad's name was "Darls" thanks to my mother-in-law constantly referring to Spunky Art as "Darls". At 15 he still refers to his Grandad as 'Darls'. That word too has now crept into my vocabulary, largely as a joke but I use it more often than I should and for some reason "Shugga" is dropping in thre as well. Go fizzle ma shizzle!

Silly names are exacerbated by a particular someone I correspond with who calls me a barrage of weird names, and I him. We've run through the Fior, Sweet Prince, Baby Blue, Pookie, Princess, Poppet, Petal, Helen of Sydney (and or Troy) and the various Chicken nom de plumes and on to Schnooks.

I'm a chronic user of "Darling" and "Sweetheart" to pretty much anyone younger than me or in my family. It can be a great patronising cut-down if enunciated correctly "Surely you don't believe that rubbish d-a-h-l-i-n-g" but I usually mean it in an affectionate tone. Sweetie is a fave when talking to young girls but not in a patronising way. DrummerBoy and the Fringelet are a 'honey' couple. (God it sounds odd hearing your progeny use terms of endearment)

Further odd names are of course perpetuated through blogging by trying to retain the anonymity of those who wish to remain anonymous such as Struth Ruth, TheBenchwarmer, Crispy and the like.

Apparently it's socially acceptable for 'older' people to refer to their juniors with pet names but not in reverse. Must admit I don't take to kindly to young shop assistants calling me 'Dear' or 'Love' or Darlin'I might make an exception for JD who has a 'Darlin' problem but then he's from South Carolina and also calls me M'aam. (which makes me feel strangely superior and powerful)

Even genitalia is not immune to embarrassing pet names such Wissy and Po-po , pee-pee, diddles and doodoos (you work out which is which)

I've never been one for babyish lovey-dovey kinda names other than extremely tongue in cheek or unless it involves animals "Who's a bewfulls, schnookie pookie puppy den". Clearly this is directed towards Lily, The Princess or bloodydog. (even she has nicknames)

I can't imagine anyone thinking of me as a 'Tweet squishy hottie buns' as this little generator seems to think! Although I'm quite fond of my Facebook Stripper name "Ashley Sugarlick" Frankly I don't care what you call me as long as you don't make love with your socks on!

Pet names? Nicknames? Terms of endearment? Got any apart from the obvious?(I know that despite his mother's unusual choice of name, Thrifty is not his real name and Quickroute isn't alluding to a moment of spontaneous and speedy sexual activity.

What 's your nickname and how do you refer to your particular Love Chunks! (your partner, not your bits!). C'mon now . . . spill . .

27 comments:

Thriftcriminal said...

Actually Thrifty is about as close as I've got to a nickname, I went to Boarding school though and was in a class with: Beaver, Jasper, Heiffer, Zip (aka tim-o-te), Fla, Cozzy, Monty, Tarps, Micko, Roger Ramjet, Murph, Phlegm and Raff. We were taught by The Killer, The Goof, The Fish, The Bob, Waggles, Flats, Jimmy hill (not his real name, but the chin was identical) the shneed, The bonabh (pronounced bonav, nasty piece of work), Eddie, Wirey, Putty, George, The Gunner, The fodger, The Dav, The Rat, The Wanker (from searching for chalk in his pockets) and (occasionally as a temp) The Turkey.

Anonymous said...

Dragan Dabic ...

Unknown said...

It proves you have good imagination I suppose. My real name is István but I am usually called Ropi. The truth is I was called István the least. In elementary school my classmate used the nickname forms of my name or they called me Long Gun.

Megan said...

My nephew had trouble with my name when he was smaller, so I am now known forever as Auntie Bacon.

Also Meg, Megs, Mags, Meeks, Meekie, Megara and Nutmeg.

I abhor Meggie and will not answer to it if so called.

Anonymous said...

Moon - from the age when I could first speak to this day ... everyone expect my ma, calls me Moon. Although I did get 'Bluey' when I was cricketing in Adelaide !

I like clever nicknames, such as a South African cricketer who surname is Zondeki... so his nick name was 'All hands'

Anonymous said...

Oh, also, genitalia ... bejingo !

Anonymous said...

Mine were borrrring!

Marie became - Mags, Nags, Nag all from the brothers. Mary Kate when my father wanted something and then there were Carrots, Freckles, Drip-dry, Skinnymalinks and finally the one I adopted and answer to no matter where I am. Yes, you guessed Grannymar.

Anonymous said...

Jenny and I have loads of private endearments, as well as private jokes, but there's no way we're sharing them with anyone else! That would take all the fun out of them for one thing. I've never had any nicknames either, when I was at school we concentrated on nicknaming all the teachers! I rather like all the nicknames for unusual sexual practices like golden showers and water sports.

Anonymous said...

Oh dear,

We're very formal in our house, but I know worse. I have a colleague, a son of a clergyman, we'll call him 'Finnegan, who was away at boarding school in the 1960s. His father would write to him each week and sign off the letter,

"Your loving father,

Archdeacon Finnegan"

Anonymous said...

That was fun to read! LOL!

Me, I was known for some obscure reason as Doodles when I was young and there isn't even a single D in my name. As a couple, we're both sweethearts, which can be a tad confusing - but has it's amusing side. For instance, when we're splitting up in town and we've started to walk away and Other Half remembers something he wants to tell me and yells out 'HEY - SWEETHEART!' and a dozen heads whip round. Not sure if they're hopeful, or just want to see who the sweetheart is. ROFL!

I call my friends honey and sweetie. I call people I want to put down 'honey', too. It's amazing how much scathe you can get into it if you try.

Anonymous said...

My nearest and dearest is a terror for giving people nicknames - never cruel ones but enough to raise a snigger. It's not so funny though when we refer to them by the wrong name, by mistake... and it has happened!

Bolshy nurses are a favourite target of his and we've had some great laughs getting our own back without them realising it.

One girl in school insisted on calling me 'Steffer The Heifer' which didn't please me too much in my teens but otherwise I think I escaped pretty lightly...phew!

Gayé Terzioglu said...

Bebek. we use this instead of baby, it means bebe, baby, babe in Turkish. Literally it means baby as in a new born, but it is used much as a term of endearment I guess, well as the literal use.
He also calls me chicka.
I hate being called "love" by people I don't know who are not granny-old people. It's one of those things I had to get over in Oz as I heard it one too many times. My students used to call me Ma'am when I was teaching Hapkido, and it does have that strange makes-me-feel good/respect sound to it I think.
Geez Hells you do have so many nicknames for peeps in your family.

Anonymous said...

Bosom Head. By my sister.

No I am not kidding!!

Baino said...

Oh Thrifty and there I was being an arrogant Aussie thinking we had the monopoly on silly names!

AGITH: Best nickname ever . . served him well until recently eh?

Ropi: Either that or that we are interminably lazy "Long Gun" I wonder why! Here you'd be "Shorty".

Haha Megan, my father was referred to as Bumper rather than Grandpa for a long time by the tots! Doo Doo and Gockle are also kiddy mispronunciations for my sister "Louise" or more frequently "Lou" and my Bro in law "Michael". I won't ever call you Maggie!

Moon: I hope it didn't come from some 'flashing' action as a child? Yeh, we're so original over here! I guess its more polite than Gingerbollocks. "Bejingo" Brilliant.

GM: Brothers can be so rude! Fortunately I can retort with 'shuddup baldy' to mine!

Now now Naughty Nick! . . What's a Golden Shower? *raises innocent eyebrow*. One other nephew is called Nicholas . . he gets "Knickers", hey it made him grow up tough!

Oh that poor boy Ian, did he ever learn his not so loving father's real name! And you're "Rev" in my book! Apologies for the irreverence.

Jay perhaps you were one of those kids that used to draw on the walls! I will visit your place, promise! Soon.

Steph imagine my horror when I found out that 'Nell' is a euphamism for an American COW! It's a name my father gave me when I was a gossan and no matter how hard I try to get rid of it .. just sticks so like my curly hair, I've stopped fighting it. Keep up the good work on the Nurse Ratchetts of the world!

Gaye I love that one cos it's sort of secretive, only Turkish people would understand it. . .I didn't realise how many until I actually wrote it down. We only call each other by our 'real' names if we're mad with each other. And there I worked so hard to find unalterable baby names, I hardly ever call my kids by their proper names.

Baino said...

Em . .better than Tit Face! She's so rude!

Kath Lockett said...

Geez, where do I start?

I was a chubby-faced baby, so my folks called me 'Bubbles' after an SANFL player who had the same feature. This 'endearment' still sometimes slips out of my mother's mouth at inopportune moments!

Kath-urine - thanks to litte bro dave.
Bauble - thanks to big bro Rob, who likened the end of my nose to Rudolph's

Cackles - from Dad, during my teenage years. Sometimes shortened to the less-than-cute 'Cack' by any member of the family for any reason

Chopper - surname being 'Read', this was inevitable. 'Read' was also a source of hilarity for my students in the brief time I was teaching high school English.

Finally, when I got married to Love Chunks, my surname changed to 'Lockett', so I went from being called 'Chopper' to 'Plugger'.

*sigh* .... actually Baino, do you mind if I use this guff as a blog article on my own patch? Linked to yours, of course :)

Baino said...

Absolutely Plugger! Go for it after all I pinched "Love Chunks" (well not literally!)

for those not in the know Plugger Lockett is an Aussie Rules (aerial ping-pong) player of some distinction!

Anonymous said...

Up until recently my kids were 'Manboy' and 'Cheruboy' but the first was run over by a car and is now called 'Flatboy' and the second turned into a teen named 'Stinkboy' - no explanation needed for the last.

Anonymous said...

I remember 'Pluggers' advert for Hungry Jacks, in fact I still know the words ... he was one of the best, him, "God" Ablett and the fella from Hawthorn, and interestingly enough, I was good friends with Darren Jarmen !

Bimbimbie said...

I'm scratching my head over what my Chosen One calls me but that's what I call him. Darl has crept in a bit too of late hmmmm I'm going to have to pay attention ;)

Anonymous said...

I love nicknames....you know all mines, however my dawgs are Shelby and Poppy - they get Shelbozo (or Barge Arse) and Popstar or PlipPlop. of course Bainos horses get Lozzar and or Chips (they are actually Laurie and Chippy). When I was a child I used to get Lou and for my surname Dunnycan or "2 Toilets in 1"....lovely.

But my fave is Twon or Twonneth, which was given to me from my Twonneth (ThePlumber)...they originated from Ma Fe (being male) and Ma Fem (being female) oh such fond words of love.....

Unknown said...

Noodle and her Doodle...
Best mates are affectionately called, Clairezel, Rosie Posie, Shezza and Beesly (who is officially known as Brigitte). Beesly's not too sure how she feels about her new nickname, thinks it's too close to Beestly...
I nickname and name practically everything, sweetie dahlin', even the hounds ended up with nicknames.

Baino said...

Anony . .awww poor poor Flatboy . .I hope he's recovered (and his bicycle) I can't believe you were at Fagan Park and didn't drop in!

Now Blue Moon, you're just showing off!

Chosen one! Classic. I know about the darl thing. I'm terrible, use it a lot and it's becoming unconscious which is well . .unconscionable . . .

Doo Doo how do you get Twon and Twoneth out of Ma Fem and Ma Fe . .you are totally mad (oh I forgot to fill up the water!)

AV: Don't I know it, a woman after my own heart! Luvz yer work Cupcake Queen!

Anonymous said...

I'm not explaining here! I thought you were the Google Queen? That reminds me, my granny used to call me Naughty Knickers when I was a kid. I didn't grow up tough though, quite the opposite!

Paddy in BA (Quickroute) said...

I knew a short stumpy aussie once called stretch - I think it was related to Stretch Armstrong - still makes me chuckle.

Anonymous said...

Flatboy has physically recovered and only flat in an emotional way now. Which is GOOD for a teen! He stinks too... How can I lurk in your bushes when don't have an exact address? HAHHAA!! Besides, I AM 'anonymous'! Hopefully will re-visit Fagan Park when a lot further in construction and springtime...

Anonymous said...

Lol i was there in australia and everybody use to come up with his own nickname lol