THOSE NICKNAMES

Hokitika Guardian, 10 May 1926, Page 1

THOSE NICKNAMES

(By H. h. B. Il'odge). Have you a nickname? Has it over occurred to you tliere’s personality in nick-names? Remember Tlnimmy, Dooley ,Winky, Curly, Mouse, Nugget, Olioiace, Fatty, Skinny. Tuppence, and others of your school days a decade or even a generation ago. It is on the cards even now that, if anyone of those above mentioned were brought face to face with you, you would immediately address them by the sobriquet they earned for thmselves in earlier days The same state of affairs exists today. Pass a suburban school during a recess, and you will bear nicknames which you thought bad long since heen forgotten. There are, perhaps the Blueys, the Curlys, the Tineys, and the Skinnys. and each of them perhaps will carry tlie nicknames for quite as long a. period as you have done. ft must not ho forgotten, however, there is something in a boy’s tavour lo have a nick-name—for he is generally popular, and it seems to no a hall-mark of good favour. On the other hand, rarely an unpopular hoy is given a nickname, unless, of course, it borders on the offensive. If you consider for n minute or two you will recall to mind a. long enough list of hoys you used to know to hear out this contention. Trace them out one by one, and you will find they were given nicknames because ot some striking feature, in their personality. It may have been a peculiarity in make up, or the result of some humorous expression that took on; hut whatever the cause, the effect was that the nickname stuck.

Hide it as you may from the present generation, you must admit that the nickname chosen for you suited. I lint is, of course, if you remember it. It is even possible, however, that you have forgotten it; hut it is more than probable one day you will prick jom cars at the sound of the familiar 'nine. You will see before you an old schoolmate with outstretched hand. “\Vhv, Skin, you haven’t much altered since those days.” A thrill will cause jour blood to tingle at the thought that he had not forgotten your nick name. Ponder awhile and go hack to the days when you nicknamed your schoolmaster. He was either “Micky," “Ginger,” or “Four Eyes,” or “Scottv,” or Woolly,” or some such name, -because of some outstanding chaiacteiistic. You recall how the name went from lip to lip, like wildfire, until every hoy had it on the tip of his tongue. Every time you made use of the name jam were in deadly fear and trembling of the immediate future, and what it held for you. Nicknames more often than not lake precedence over Christian names; and try as parents at times do to stamp them out, they find it a difficult proposition to stop Jimmy Johnson, or “Bliiey” Smith from calling their Percival 1 ‘Porky.” ' Of course, girls are not so prone to have nicknames that stick in the same manner as the boys do ; but when a virl enjovs a name, like Johnny, or Mousey, or Joe, or Fat, then each can lie voted a jolly good fellow.