Following our earlier conversation about nicknames, listeners are still responding with stories about their own nicknames. Two of those show how nicknames sometimes arise from a single incident, then stick around for years. In one story, a girl spelled out the name Jennifer in all caps, but forgot the final downward stroke on the letter R. Thereafter, she was affectionately called Jennifep and later just Fep. In another, a girl made a connection between a friend named Wendy Larson and a word she learned while paging through an unabridged dictionary. The word is condylarth, which refers to an extinct ungulate animal. For decades thereafter, she referred to her friend Wendy Larson as Condy Larthon, or simply Cond. How did you get your nickname? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Nickname Stories”
We asked folks for stories about how their nicknames came about, and we got some great responses.
Joanna Schlegel from Cape Cod wrote to say, when we were kids, my sister Jennifer was writing her name in block letters, all caps, but she omitted the support on the final R so that it read Jenna Fep. She’s been Fep ever since.
And today she’s a tenured linguistic anthropologist, but she still goes by Fep in certain circles. That’s cute.
And we also heard from Wendy Larson, who said a good friend of mine in elementary school named Rachel was an unusually advanced reader for her age, and one of her prized possessions was an unabridged Random House Dictionary.
During one of her regular explorations of the dictionary, she apparently made a connection between my name, Wendy Larson, and an extinct primitive ungulate called a condylarth. She thereafter playfully referred to me as Condylarthen. Two names.
And 60 years later, I’m still known as only cond to her.
And I’m struck by both of those stories and the fact that sometimes a nickname just comes from one little tiny incident.
And you’re stuck with it the rest of your life.
And you’re stuck.
We’re still taking stories about how you got your nickname or how you gave one.
877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org.
