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Nicknames
By Phil Scott AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2016 Phil Scott
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5246-3891-7
CHAPTER 1
Good morning class! My name is Mr. Oxtenford, but you may call me, "Mr. O" and that is a good place to start our lesson today ... nicknames! Usually our names are given to us at birth, but our nicknames come and go as we grow. No one seems to know when nicknames first appeared in history, but using nicknames is very, very old. Nicknames can be slippery, cleverly disguised, sticky, or explosive. Do you already have a nickname? (Picture several students with "though clouds") (A girl thinks, "My dad calls me princess and my little sister calls sort of calls me BD". A boy thinks, "Yea, but I'm not telling." Another boy thinks, "My real name is William but everyone calls me Billy." Another girl thinks, "Everyone calls me SJ, but one day when my mom was upset with me she said, "Sarah Jo, do you want a spanking? So is my nickname Sarah Jo or SJ?")
First I'll explain slippery nicknames. Perhaps a nickname sticks to us for a while ... but then slippery slides away. My first name is Clive. Like the names Burl, Alfred, Pearl, and Agnes, the name Clive has become ... less popular. By the time I was in Junior High my friends called me "Oxy"; a nickname shortened from my last name; I liked that nickname. It was used by my parents, my friends, and a few teachers and coaches. Because my last name is also unpopular and a little difficult to pronounce, I decided to use "Mr. O" as my identity name when I grew up, and "Oxy" slid away. Sometimes many years pass before I hear someone call me "Oxy" again. We may not get to choose the nicknames that are stuck on us. Many of us will have a slippery nickname that slides away when we grow up. (Cloud thoughts: A student thinks, "Maybe I'll get a nickname because my real name isn't popular." Another student thinks, "I have a cousin everyone calls "Peaches" but I think her real name is Penelope.")
Some nicknames are cleverly disguised as shortcuts for long names, like mine. The name Alexander or Alejandra may be shortened by using the nickname Alex. The nickname Benny may be used for a person named Benjamin, or Dee for girl named Donnella. A girl with the name Annette might be called Annie or Netty. A boy with the name Markus or Carlos might be nicknamed Mark or Carl. In fact, some nicknames are taken from the letters of our first and our middle names, like Joshua Thomas might be nicknamed JT or Melissa Joann might be nicknamed MJ. (One male student has a cloud thought, "I was named after my dad, David, and my middle name is the same as my grandpa, Nathaniel. I wonder why they call me JR?" Another student thinks, "I wonder if there's a shortcut for my name?" (Mr. O, continues), Some nicknames are even taken from a shortcut of our last names like a boy with the name Andrew Adam Johnson might be nicknamed AJ or a girl named Madison Annie Tyson might be nicknamed Mattie. So some nicknames roll off our tongue much easier than our full names.
Some nicknames are sticky because they started with a story. A boy walked slowly toward the school bus each day while impatient classmates watched him from the bus and nicknamed him "Turtle." Another boy, whose real name was Ricky, who could run faster than anyone in the whole school, was nicknamed "Rocket." A girl who always wore pretty clothes, had long blonde hair, and a pretty smile was nicknamed Barbie even though her real name was Allison. (One student has a cloud thought, "I have a friend everyone calls, 'Boo.' Maybe he was born on Halloween." Another student thinks, "My cousin is called 'Buz'. I thought it was because he liked Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story, but maybe it's because when he was little he tried to cut his own hair with the electric clippers.) (Mr. O continues), A soldier was nicknamed "Koolaide" because he drank a lot of koolaide after long, hot workouts. A girl who tried several times to bake cake for her mom was nicknamed "Cool Whip" because the cakes looked like brownies and she covered the flat cakes with, you guessed it ... Cool Whip. (Student thought, "I did that once.")
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Nicknames by Phil Scott. Copyright © 2016 Phil Scott. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
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