You wouldn't think Mary could be shortened, right? However, my mother often called me May while my sister calls me Mare to this day. Still, both are respectable enough compared to some of the names I've been called in my time.
No, I don't mean that sort of name! I mean nicknames. In grammar school I got lumbered with a veritable roll-call of names all in a lump: Ladles Merrolls Lunas McHaggis. Loony for short. Well, to be honest, I did clown around a bit. Applying a bit of Holmesian deduction to the list I suspect Ladles was connected with my disastrous results in cookery classes, about which I have written elsewhere*. Merrolls is a bit of a puzzle though I am guessing it is descended from my first name. Having already dealt with Lunas, McHaggis is a mystery given I've never knowingly consumed a haggis and am not Scottish although one of my ancestors came from the Land of the Thistle. However, in the UK McWhatevers are popular nicknames for reasons insulting or endearing -- surely we haven't forgotten Boaty McBoatface already? DB, if you see this, do throw some light on the matter!
To backpedal, I did not care for cookery classes because I was hopeless at it. The invention of the ring-pull tin was a blessing for humanity in my opinion. At some point another classmate took the notion of calling me Mushy after the hapless cook's assistant in a certain TV western series. Good job I didn't get lumbered with the character's full moniker: Harkness Mushgrove III. I confess to rather liking his separated surname Mush Grove. To me it suggests a small cul-de-sac in a sleepy country town, a community replete with summer tea parties, neighbours gossiping over fences or a pint in local hostelries, fetes and whist drives, tennis, and Sunday morning church, the whole forming a traditional Miss Marple type setting in which well-kept secrets are about to be revealed, perhaps in those well-kept gardens of the Georgian houses in Mush Grove.
To return to our muttons, needless to say plain old Mushy was not the end of it. In time it metamorphosed into Mushling or Mushvita (rhymes with sweeter) but in the end it was Mushy that stuck. It must have done so employing super-glue because there are still two or three people addressing me by it all these years later.
Naturally while composing these lines I grilled Mr Maywrite concerning his nicknames and he confessed he has had but one. It relates to when he was a baby and a local youngster always called him Erk because he could not pronounce Eric. That's not so bad, really, given I know three ladies whose nicknames are Haggis, Fanlight, and Ratface respectively.
Indeed, all three are relatively benign compared to some of the nicknames British royalty have been given. Consider John aka John Lackland. I suspect he not only had little acreage to his name but also, as Red Buttons would have said, didn't get a dinner either. Aethelred the Unready (usually described as meaning without wisdom) was forced to buy off foreign raiders with Danegeld raised through taxation. We can all agree bribery in such situations is not wise, it just means the amount demanded will be higher next time.
As for Bloody Queen Mary? Persecution of Protestants during her reign. During his, her father Henry VIII ordered the amount of precious metal in coins reduced and in cases where copper was substituted, overlaid silver wore off the royal nose, revealing the copper base. Hence Henry was dubbed Old Coppernose. I am irresistibly reminded of the bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln near the entrance to the president's tomb in Springfield, IL. By tradition, visitors rub his nose for good luck and as a result it is bright and shiny. Having added to the effect personally, I wonder what Honest Abe, were he to return, would make of the custom.
* https://maywrite.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-orphan-scrivener-issue-ninety-15.html#snap
No comments:
Post a Comment