If I could afford a chair, I would have fallen off it upon reading in one of the public prints that deid gangster Al Capone’s nickname was Snorky.
Who could fear a man known as Snorky? Scarface, his other nickname, yes. But Snorky? Apparently, the word was 1920s slang for a sharp dresser. However, today it sounds like a cross between dorky and snorkel.
On reading further, the latest news also revealed that Venero Mangano, underboss of New York’s Genovese crime family, is known as Benny Eggs. That sounds almost cuddly, or perhaps a little cracked. He earned the soubriquet because his agrarian mother reared hens.
To make matters worse, Benny’s bodyguard was known as Johnny Sausage. I was hoping his butler was called Bacon Butty, but think I’ve taken this too far now.
I am indebted to The Sunday Post’s Queries Man for the above intelligence, which makes me thankful that I have never, to my knowledge, had a nickname. Being a Robert is bad enough, with all the permutations of Rab, Rob, Rabbie, Robbie, Bert, Bertie, Bobs and Bobby that it engenders.
To complicate matters, my yoga teacher calls me Richard, as indeed did a teacher in another class. I can only conclude that I look a little like a Richard: kind of noble, I’m guessing, ken? I hear murmuring at the back.
Nicknames come and go. No one is called Chalky any more when, not so long ago, every children’s novel or story of the Battle of Britain would have a Chalky, which I think went with the surname White.
People used also to be called Queeny and Shorty, but these seem to have disappeared, the latter perhaps because it is politically incorrect. As for queens, Margrethe II of yonder Denmark is kept down to earth with the nickname Daisy (either because Margrethe in French – Marguerite – means daisy, or because the flower is Denmark’s national emblem).
Many workplaces will have someone called Ghost, often talked about but never seen. I used to know of someone called Flea, whose dad was also known as Flea, so at least it didn’t jump a generation.
Some of you out there, I know, have your own computers, and you can go to a website called quizrocket.com that has a nickname generator. In the interests of research, I borrowed a computer and answered the 15 questions.
This is the nickname it came up with for me: T-Bone. This, it says, is “probably the coolest classic nickname around”, adding: “You wear it well because you are so cool.”
This is incorrect. According to several academic studies, I am the least cool person in western Europe. Also, as a vegetarian, I cannot think that T-Bone is the right moniker for me.
A part of me would like a nickname in line with my ongoing wish to reinvent myself without going all David Bowie and getting a peculiar haircut. But nothing really springs to mind, though Moaney or Grouchy might seem apt. Twiggy might have sufficed last year but I’ve put the weight back on.
Since nicknames are usually faintly derogatory, perhaps it’s as well I don’t have one. It seems to me the yolk was on Benny Eggs. And with jokes that bad, thank goodness I can’t think of a link to Johnny Sausage.
