Posted: 10 October 2006 at 2:45am | IP Logged | 3
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Brett Rankin wrote: "I don't really get the concept of the nicknames being so horrible. I have nicknames for my best friend, my dad, my favorite athletes...all perfectly acceptable. Does this mean I secretly loathe and lack respect for those people?"
I'm with you on this one, Brett, and I'm speaking as someone who lived under a multitude of nicknames while growing up on account of 1) there being at least 3 other Joakims in my year at school, and 2) my surname is VERY VERY unusual. Granted I enjoyed and identified more with some and less with others. Also, to add to it I've taken quite a few myself over the years – my signature JJ3 a.k.a. The Mad Swede are two that I'm sticking with since taking them back at the Arena mailinglist, back in the early days. :)
All that said, I believe maybe part of the problem is that English unlike Swedish doesn't very clearly distinguish between positive nicknames and negative nicknames (in Swedish the former would be "smeknamn" and the other "öknamn"). Ok granted that you can talk about petnames (which would literally correspond to the Swedish "smeknamn"), but isn't that mostly between lovers and such? So, nicknames are just the whole shebang, and name calling becomes more less equivalent of being friendly.
Ah well...
In response to Joe Mayer... I'm still here, Joe. And I agree. You don't misbehave in somebody else's home so I too respect JB's wishes (although I did put my foot in it before this thread came up, causing JB to winge a bit (still sorry about that)), but the assumption that GREAT familiarity with a subject causes disrespect is just absurd. Sure it may not cause devout reverence, but I wasn't aware that the comics we read should be our religious faith. I much rather prefer fiction where I can get close to the characters, sometimes even get inside their heads. And on that note I can understand why some people would object to some nicknames because they're simply not good nicknames. Case in point, something like "Maggie" for Magneto doesn't even make me think of the gentleman in question, it actually makes me think more about the Maggia which was always a fascinating organised crime group - any relation to the Mafia? ;)
L&B, JJ3 a.k.a. The Mad Swede
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