Thursday 27 March 2008

What's in a name?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

The Boss and I were talking about nicknames the other day. He thought it would be amusing for me to list all my nicknames in my profile. I ran out of space though. But..oh! Look at this! I have a blog! Ha! I can fit them all in here!

So...

I am seen reacting to nicknames, collected from several friends - Doughnut, Pops, Opium and Miss Poppins. All quite cutsie, well, other than "Doughnut" anyways. But that one has nothing to do with eating, or holes! Remember the famous JFK speech about doughnuts? No? I ain't explaining it - its obvious. And Opium..ohhh, I get an image of a sultry, sexy, dark-haired woman in a desert somewhere with that. Soooo not me! *wonders if she actually got that image from the remnants of a memory of a 1980s Opium perfume ad

But, soppy thing that I am, my absolute favourites are those which come from The Boss.

He, The Boss, started off by always calling me his "pain in the ass". I think that he got peeved writing that out all the time...way to long.

So then he moved to Popette...a very sweet take on Poppet that Mattie came up with initially, I think. But, although very endearing, I don't think that he could quite push all of his amused, shaking-his-head-at-me frustration into that one word. "Wench" is a favourite too at the moment, which goes more in the right direction.

So now there is a whole plethora of adjectives which he uses: handful, picky, naughty hungry & cheeky included to add or detract from his emphasis. Poor man.

But he manages to always have a a glint in his eye and a chuckle when he says it...mostly anyways.

The absolute newest, and I fear this one will stick firmly: Troietta. *sighs and then chuckles. For any non-Italians out there, this can best be translated as meaning "strumpet", but possibly a little more...more....well...

Yes, you get the idea.

Thing is though, since I put this in my profile, I get the Italians all IMing me and chuckling their backsides off! One wanted me to tell him in technicolour detail how "troietta-ish" I was. Oh please! As if. Spent a pleasant half hour winding him up - I even got him to beg, how wonderful! And then didn't give him any details. Yes, yes...boo, hiss.

*snorts.

So...a name. Mine. Poppy. Poppy Weston.

Nicknames are nice. They mean a connection, a shared experience or feeling with someone. Some secret (there are others which The Boss uses, of course, but....hehehe, not telling!), others everyone might use, but how nice to have that added feeling of emotion to your name. That little story behind how that nickname came to be.

I never chose Poppy as a name due to any rl connection. But now...her name is a part of me as much as I am of her.

And yes, I most likely would turn to look if someone called it in a busy street.

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