Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Glenn said:

dulcimoo said:

Phil said:

I remember a wonderful ...;
Shanda Lear *a daughter of the family that owns Lear Jets*

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Lear is the name of the guy that started the company. Like Ford is the last name of Henry Ford, who started Ford. I don't see what is so remarkable. Or am I missing somthing?

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The spelling obscures the joke, but say it out loud. Shanda Lear / chandelier. I hear she was brilliant and dependable.

Ummmm...yah. Well this is a stretch.

Lee said:

Ima and Ura Hogg were always among my favorites.

Ima Hogg was a very real person, quite important in the history of Houston.

My favorite of the aptronymous book titles is "Stains on the Bedsheet, by Mister Completely."

tomfornicola said

My daughter has a Doctor who has the last name Doctor. My wife giggles every time they call from Dr. Doctor's office.

And for years the chief justice of the UK was Judge Judge (ok when he became a high court judge he would have been addressed, technically, as "Justice Judge" but still...

And there was an Anglican bishop in Montreal in the 1980s names Harvey Shepherd.

And a religion professor with a Phd whose last name is Hospital, and so gets called Dr. Hospital (now if only he'd become a medical doctor).

robkeim said
Is there a word for when it ironically the opposite? Our school's past disciplinarian was named Mr. Sugar, and we also have a very strict math teacher named Mrs. Sweet. I remember having a very mousy substitute teacher (about five-foot two, 100 pounds) named Mr. Musselman.

The word "musselman" us often used in Arabian Nights.   It apparently meant "Muslim" in earlier times.   I thoought that interesting, in that Muslims keep Koshe, and thus cannot consume mussels.

I used to have a medical specialist, De Peter Smith, but he was a podiatrist, not a urologist.

Much has been made of   the rich Texan, Mr. Hogg, with two daughters, Ima and Ura. I used to know a Noah Crumb, but it's hard to escape a surname.   My mother had a friend, Iona Ford, who married Jejabd Ford, to become Iona Ford Carr.   Leland was a Ford dealer, but he sold tractors, not cars.

And here's a few I made up back in those miscreant teen days...

"I heard Jeff Ardid in the men's room."

"How long have you known Yuri Tardid?"

"These two callers I have on hold are perfect for each other. She's looking for Amanda Banger, and he wants to get ahold of Herb Ubies."

Ah, to be young and crude.

State Farm had a agent in Van Wert, Ohio, whose name was Richard Hoff, but the billboard on US 127 for years used his nickname, Dick.  If you marry Mr Hoff, you pretty much need a sense of humor, no matter what name you choose for your kids.

Jack Kennedy named his brother Attorney General, but I think it'd been nice if he'd named Eunice's husband to the cabinet as well.  Maybe Postmaster General Sargent Shriver, or Secretary of the Navy Sargent Shriver.  I never read the book or saw the movie, but there was a Major Major in Catch 22.

I know a church organist who once was married to C. Minor Good.  It would have been worst for his self-esteem if his mother had named him A. Minor Good, but he always went by a nickname, and few people knew him as Charles, or knew his middle name.  

Your family name is a "surname".  Are there single word equivalents for your given name or your middle name?

These days, if your parents are American, you're considered native-born but that wasn't true when Chester A Arthur was born in Canada, yet he became POTUS, one of our best, I'm told, even without being a US citizen.  And there's that thing in the constitution about a foreign title of nobility, but it was no secret the POTUS between Nixon and Carter had been a King.