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THE BOOKSTORE: Skylight Books, Los Angeles
THE DICTIONARY: American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition, 2000
THE WORD: “loopy”
c.1390, probably of Celtic origin (cf. Gael. lub “bend,” Ir. lubiam), influenced by O.N. hlaup “a leap, run.” In ref. to magnetic recording tape or film, first recorded 1931. Computer programming sense first attested 1947. The verb meaning “to form a loop” is first recorded 1856. Looped “drunk” is from 1934; loopy “crazy” is from 1925. To loop the loop (1902) originally was a stunt of bicycle-riding. (thank you, Online Etymology Dictionary)
Ok. So, “loopy”–I used to know a girl nicknamed this. I never found out why, or if I was hearing it incorrectly–because even if it had been something else (like Lupe), in the Midwest we draw those vowels right out, giving the umlaut treatment whenever possible. But perhaps nicknames aren’t meant to be exactly inviolable. If you’re famous, infamous, or just plain unpopular enough, chances are you’ve been the recipient of a nickname. And nicknames, being the intrinsic property of others, seem to beg derivations: Hoss becomes Jefe becomes General Excelsior (perhaps a ridiculous route).
In eighth grade a band of Heathers adopted me as an extremely ancillary member, and christened me Tabük. The etymology of this is foggy to me now, though most certainly it involved some meme leftover from a group science project. It died off by high school, but I have to say I kind of missed it, even if was supposed to mark me as, um, loopy. (If you have Stockholm Syndrome at all, you cling to crumbs!)
So first of all a) am I psychic and was your day especially loopy? and b) did you ever have a nickname and was it ever butchered by others?
Comments (4)
Comment
When I was but a child my brother, (who was less than a year older then me,)started to call me feh-wah. This was a butchery of my current nickname fella, which is how I was referred to by all of my relatives. This nickname stuck with me for the rest of my life. During this time, while some of my relatives continued with the “feh-wah” nickname my brother, and my other loving siblings, took it upon themselves to alter, and or maim, that nickname even further. Here follows is a short list-
-fig
-fell (pronounced fill)
-fell (pronounced fell, they could’t spell very well at that age.)
-fig
-film
-and, filma.
I don’t expect that they will ever stop making up nicknames based on that first one, But rest assured one day I’ll have my, well deserved, revenge.
posted by gil on 10-31-2007 at 7:17 am
Luckily, all of my nicknames were dubbed as endearments. My brother sometimes called me Meag-atron, a friend called me Meag-a-Leg, and now my boyfriend calls me Trinky (weird, long explanation . . . ). Unfortunately for my brother (Eric), we called him Er-head (aka Airhead). As for my day being loopy . . . not so much. :-)
posted by Meagan on 10-31-2007 at 7:57 am
In college, for some odd reason I was called Hankleford… I still don’t know why.
posted by Hank on 10-31-2007 at 9:33 am
Cousin is a left over from some stupid game my freshman year of college. It stuck like glue to the point where people who I was often with didn’t even know my real name.
We tended to go over the top with nicknames, that often evolved. Cate began as Catey-bear, then was just Bear for a really long time until age (21) and wisdom (a college degree) made a more sophisticated and elderly name necessary, from which time she was referred to by her “full name” Bearance Louise. The same goes for Carl, who was Sketch at first (he was a sketchy character)which evolved into the more stately Sketchly J. Rutherford. Yep, for a while there nobody went by their real name
posted by cousin on 10-31-2007 at 10:36 am