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

Now, I ask you, what's more entertaining than a quick perusal of the newspaper's obituary page?

My local newspaper has recently started adding the nicknames of the deceased, as well as a tiny picture to accompany the sad news of someone's passing. Between yesterday and today, the following people have gone to their great reward:

Snooky Boy (aforementioned)
Rassie
Big Linda (She was!)
Buck
Pecan
Pooh (Oh dear!)
Pop
Doc
Mac
Money (Cha-ching!)
Toady
Cootsie
Red
Able Mabel (Really!)
Brother
Bay

Makes me wonder what earned them their respective nicknames. I think they must have understood the benefits of living their life with a healthy dose of humor.

May they all rest in peace.

How odd.

I mean, who actually reads the obituaries?

Well, someone takes the time to write them, so someone should take the time to read them.

That is a little sad, yes.

A little?

OK, yes, I'm a sad, sad girl! I like to read the obits!!

You like to read to hobits?

No, that would be even sadder, don't you think?

Not if hobbits were real.

Eh, it's not so odd. I stay in theaters until all the end credits have run, because they put them (end credits) there for a reason.

Still...it's odd to include nicknames. And Pooh's catchphrase was "Oh, bother", not "Oh, dear"

FYI.

But they're not, so I'm only left with the obits.

Hey, I read all the way to the end of the credits too! *sigh* and yes, I knew 'Oh dear' didn't look right...*shrug*...but you got it anyway.

*phew* I thought I was the only person to sit to the end of the credits!!

It almost seems like a kind of rude joke, to add a nickname. Like you call the paper, tell them your uncle died, and then you get to tell them that you want everyone to know you thought he was a cheapskate, so you say that was his nickname.

...makes me wonder what people would nickname me, when I'm gone...

My mum always starts reading papers at the end, so she reads the obituaries first...
I've kinda taken after her, a bit.

We don't get nicknames, but I always feel a bit--- pleased? Well, not so sad, anyway, when I see on an obituary a whole list of sons, daughters, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and their households.
Kinda feels like 'Well, at lest this person had a long life, and hopefully a full one. Left all those people behind who remember him/her'.
I realise it isn't necessarily true, but it's still kinda nice.
Albeit in a morbid sort of way...


I'm weird.
*shrug*



As for the credits thing... hey, am I the only one that reads the entirety of people's Personal Spaces?

What about people with no close relatives?

Just their name in the back page of a local paper, and that's it.
That always makes me sad.

Yeah...

or you'd have the more important ones. 'The whatever-it-is company inc. laments the passing away of board member and distinguished blah blah blah' - 'The so-and-so organisation laments the loss of one of its founders' - etc. Always with big logos. Makes you wonder how much they really care, and how much it's just a bit more ad-space.

Seeing the nicknames makes me wonder about their personalities, and what's the story that lead up to the name. I wish I had a good nickname.

When I worked in O&A summer camp, we had O&A sweatshirts made at the end of the summer, and had nicknames on those. Not necessarily something we've been called, just something that fit and/or was cool.
So first summer I had it 'Good Girl' ('cause I am! ), second one 'Kinda Counts' (inside joke).

*shrug* Never been actually called any of them, though.

I had a group of friends that I went to school with, and we made similar t-shirts for each other. Mine was (embarrasing) Lil Ray. As in sunshine.

Funny. My 'boss' there (head of O&A department) was called Rae...