NICK NAMES
I happen to live in and area where, for some strange reason, people have long called each other by some of the oddest nick names every created.
Part of the reason for such a tendency might be found in the fact that our community is a bit ingrown in the sense that we have about a score of family names. That is changing rapidly in modern times, and I would be willing to bet the nice naming will change with it. At least, it will change to a more,multi-lingual tone because, in one area town, the Hispanic population now totals 3600 or about nine per cent of the total population.
So the fine art or crafting freaky nicknames may be on the way out . When I first, moved to this Valley area, I was puzzled when people spoke of “Skeeter”, “Wink”, “Snuffy” and “Flim”. There were others, of course, and, in time, I came to know each of them as people rather than as marks setting them apart from others. Some were associated with first names of the individuals such as:: “Bessie”, “Bev”,“Theo,”,”Oz ,” which served well until you found their first names to be some entirely different. There were others who were know by their two initials from the day of their birth until they were pushing up daisies when people learned their real names by reading the inscription on their tombstones.
I knew one family which carried this initials-to new limits. Both the husband and wife disliked the names they had “been saddled with” all their lives so they decreed that each of their children would be given initials at birth with the privilege of choosing their own name, using those letters as the base of their self-chosen name.
Towns in our area have nicknames, too. They are not intended to be so, exactly but they came into being a short form or quick led used to identify the town. I had a bit of trouble finding “The Cave” until I came to realize people were speaking of the town named “Weyers Cave.” Others, who were not going to the Cave were, instead going to “The Draft.” I found I had two choices but the larger – the town of Stuarts Draft in the southeastern side of the county took precedence over “Ramseys Draft” west of the county seat. A third town was called “Gus-Spirnz”. That one took me a while but it finally hit me that people mean they were going to or coming from “Augusta Springs, Virginia”.
Combined with native dialects, nicknames can be a problem at times. When they bother you, think about your own area and the strange names you find there. No place escapes the nick name entirely.
A.L.M. December 8, 2003 [471wds]
