h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That is kind of a cool question!

Good question! Makes you think a little about the things that we do subconsiously. The name just seemed to fit when I "dreamt" it up. Looking back at it, I can see the possible answer to why I felt that it "fit". I enjoy things that make me think, thanks.

So since you asked. I was reading a book called Tides of War by Pressfield. Talks about Alcybides and his compatriots in the Athenian Wars. So you got kind of an inside view(at least the storyteller's inside view) of the early democracy that existed there.

Twine that with the fact that I wasn't on this site long when I came across a thread called what's wrong with Americans?

So I pulled a name, that I'm sure I've heard somewhere although I can't find it in my memory (that or my favorite hat), that I thought sounded faintly greek or in some way shape or form noble sounding.

I couldn't have run around with a name like Mustang man or Laughing boy and then had a the serious converstion with other people about America.

By the by, yes I've been called both before, I own 2 Mustangs and I laugh at things I shouldn't.

My RL nickname is Kaz, but there were 5 already, so Kazzikins seemed so embarrassingly cute, that I thought no-one else would choose it!

Dear johnwfulton,My nickname is taken from the title of a poem from my first, soon to be published, book of children's poems. If you're interested, I'll send it on to you. By the by, I am a fellow Fulton;I'm one of the Ayrshire set (the clan are, and don't tell anyone, from Northumberland in ENGLAND, we first went to Fulton near Roxburgh in the Scottish Borders circa 12th Century, then fell out amongst ourselves and split into two- one to Lanarkshire the other to Ayrshire).So there you go, you can learn something new every day! By the way I now reside in the cultural conurbation which is Glasgow.Cheers, Crawford David Fulton (alias thewoo)

YAY jwf! Up Northumberland. er that is, come and dig up your roots in my back garden

ahem

My nickname is inspired by something in a Simpsons' Student Diary I got a few years ago. There was an "advertisement" in it for a company called something like "Come To Us If You Need A Short, Catchy, Pithy Name For Your Business And/Or Product".

I have only ever had four nicknames for this account: When I first activated it, my nickname was "some bloke who tried to think of a short, catchy, pithy name and spent five sleepless nights racking his brain but couldn't think of one", but that was a few characters too long so I changed "racking his brain" to its current "trying".

For the Halloween party last year, I changed my nickname to "Thanatos ..." where the ... was advertising the party. I changed back after a few days. Thanatos is the Greek(?) name for Death.

When Douglas died, I changed it for a while to "some bloke who tried to think of a short, catchy, pithy name... (In mourning. Or afternoon)" and left it like that for a few months until changing back.

Thats a very nice thing to do to keep it for longer than a few weeks like some of us, mind you I'm guilty of doing nothing other than a short poem.

Just signing on to get it on my page for coming back to.

Tell us about yours Mund.
Did you register on a Munday?
Are you from Mundania?
Is there a more sinister explanation?
Am I talking rubbish again?
Is the moon blue cheese?
Shall I just shut up?

No.
No.
Possibly.
Maybe.
Unlikely.
Just for a moment.

Just like my friend Id, I felt sorry for half of my name, which was being ignored. So, like Dave, I dropped the Ed. If you see what I mean.

So desu
Thank you.

Do people choose their own nicknames? Do their friends/classmates/age-cohort-members do it for them? And when you come to somewhere like H2G2, do you revert to your own choice or do you go along with what other people have dumped on you for years?

No doubt a lot of you will be familiar with the "St Trinians's" films, which were adapted from Ronald Searle's cartoons in 'Punch', but did you also know that there was a boys school version too, the central character of which is Nigel Molesworth, "The Terror of St Custard's" and "The Goriller of 3b" (note the appalling spelling ) The four books are essentially Nigel's description of what it's like to be at a minor public school in 1950's England. They were written by Geoffrey Willans, and illustrated by Ronald Searle.

In the first book 'Down With Skool', one of the many "wizard wheezes" that Nigel comes up with is one to break the Headmaster's cane by cutting hair from the head of Fotherington-Thomas (who is "Uterly wet and a weed and who skip galy saing hullo birds hullo sky and when I sa he hav a face like a squished tomato he sa I forgive you Molesworth for those uncouth words"). So...

"Tiptoe shuffle shuffle zoom down on fotherington thomas and shave his curly locks. While he blub i stuff the locks inside my trousis.

Go to study. Kane descend whack gosh oo gosh oo gosh and hares fly out like H bomb xplosion. Kane undamaged so it is not such a wizard wheeze after all but Headmaster get a piece of his wife's mind (making a mess after the maid have been in)> So BOYS triumphant agane WIZZ."

I'v tried to keep the quotes short, in the I hope that it doesn't get moderated out.

Oops, make that "The curse of st custards"

But why "Suck, squeeze, bang, blow"??

Mund, in my experience most nicknames are foisted on you by others but you adopt the ones you like and introduce yourself as such to others.
Nicknames somewhere like this are surely your own choice?

We may select our nicknames, but I bet a lot of them were placed in our past by someone else.

But they often suit us better than the names we were saddled with at birth.

Today it's "Suck, squeeze, bang, blow" (the stroke sequence in an internal combustion engine). Yesterday it was a line from a Spike Milligan poem. Tomorrow it'll be whatever comes into my head and sounds

I have had a nickname for over 25 years that was originally used as an an insult by a much older cousin that hated my guts.
She meant it to hurt but unfortunately for her it matched so well I adopted it, as did the only family members that mattered.
It has become a name only my very special friends are allowed to use.

Gosh Goshoogoshoogosh.