As Hamlet said, 'You lispe and
nickname God's creatures'
PAUL JOHNSON
So what has happened to nicknames? They used to be a feature of English (especially male) life. Everyone at a public school had one (mine was 'Clack' — don't ask me why). Most boys were anthropomorphised animals: Chimp, Horse, Jumbo, Pig, Bunny (a favourite for pretty boys, as was Pussy), I3onzo, Slipper, Bird and Birdie (more often used for girls), Tiger and Hippo.
Why are they vanishing? One reason is that the public school is no longer central to our culture: indeed it is deliberately downgraded by such institutions as the BBC, which would never these days give prominence to such a performer as Richard 'Stinker' Murdoch. The politically correct disapprove of nicknames, which usually have an original element of affectionate cruelty. I recall there was tut-tutting during the Falklands War when the troops and tabloids referred to the 'Argies', a term classified as racist. But soldiers' nicknames are often meaningful. In the second world war they declined to follow the official propaganda abuse line by calling the Germans Huns or Boche. The term they used was `Jerries', because they respected the skill and courage of their opponents.
The earliest English reference to nicknames, says the OED, is in 1440: 'Neke name or Eke name'. But the practice is one of the most ancient of human habits. I assume its origin was religious. Men did not dare to pronounce aloud the name of God, so used a nickname, usually based on acronyms, such as Yahweh or Jehovah. They would not say the real name of the devil either, so used Satan, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles and Old Nick (hence the Middle English term for the practice). It was adopted in a political as well as a religious context. In about 3,000 BC the ancient Egyptians. believing their sovereign to be a god, would not pronounce his name. Instead they referred to his palace. the White House, or Pharaoh —'Pharaoh says/thinks/commands, etc.'. This has proved a very durable usage, surviving into the early modern world in the term 'Porte', meaning the Sultan of Turkey and his government. Thence the collective nickname was applied to many repositories of power, the Tuileries, Versailles, the Vatican. the Quai (d'Orsay). Whitehall. Downing Street, the Kremlin and, coming full circle. the White House.
Roman Emperors had nicknames, begin ning with Caligula. I doubt if Ethelred was called `Unready' in his lifetime, or Edward `Confessor'. But William II was certainly called 'Rufus' and his brother Hemy 'Beauclerk', meaning that he could read Latin: so was Richard I `Lionhearf and Edward I longshanks'. I shudder to think what his son Edward II was called. Hotspur was a typical English late-Mediaeval nickname; so was Jockey (as in Shakespeare's 'Jockey of Norfolk'). Henry VIII called his courtiers nicknames, often nasty ones such as 'Pig', a practice adopted rather more elegantly by his daughter Elizabeth. She called Leicester 'Eyes', Essex 'Wild Horse', Hatton was 'Mutton', Burghley was `Spirit' and his son Robert 'Pigmy'. Walsingham was 'the Moor'.
Once the newsletter began to circulate, political nicknames flourished publicly, especially among the ruling class. Strafford was 'Black Tom'. Coke of Norfolk was 'King Tom'. Sandwich was 'Twitch', from a facial mannerism (was this why a recent speaker of the House was called 'Shakes' Morrison?). Shelburne was called `Malagrida', after the supposedly sinister Portuguese Jesuit, thus occasioning one of Oliver Goldsmith's notorious Mises: 'I never could understand,' he said to Shelburne, 'why they called you Malagrida, as he was rather a good sort of fellow.' No one called Wellington 'the Iron Duke': he was 'Beau'. George Lambton, first Earl of Durham, was called `Jog', from his observation that 'a man can jog along on £40,000 a year'. Lord John Russell was 'the Widow's Mite' or 'Mite', Palmerston was 'Cupid', Balfour 'Fanny', Lloyd George 'the Goat', Asquith 'Squiff or 'Perrier Jouef (also the favourite champagne of Harold Macmillan, whose nickname `Supermac', bestowed on him by the cartoonist Vicky in ridicule, did him a power of good). The young Tories called Baldwin 'Bonzo', but to his wife he was Tiger — R.A. Butler ('Rab') said he had heard her exhort him, .Go on,Tiger!'
Between the wars, nicknames were as common as ever, though often in the form of
F.E., W.S.C., Jix (Joynson-Hicks). The Law-rences were referred to as T.E. and D.H. To his dying day not so long ago, the great critic Victor Pritchett was always called N.S.by everyone, including his wife. Much-loved people had a lot of nicknames. Lady Diana Cooper was often called Baby (she was the youngest in the family), but was also known as Honks, Pug, Stitch or Mrs Stitch, and as such she figures in Evelyn Waugh's fiction. He was known as Bo and Wu (or .Mr Wu'). Baldwin's son was called Bloggs (why?), Dorothy Lygon was 'Coate'. Lord Asquith was 'Trim' (and still is). The Mitford sisters all had nicknames, except Nancy, the oldest (I always called her Mrs Rodd, just occasionally 'Ruby"). They were Woman or Woo, Dina or Dana, Bobo or Boud, Decca and Debo. Diana, the most beautiful, was also called Bodley, Nardy, Coral and Honks.
The last major flurry of English nicknames came during the second world war, for fighting men love them. Someone called White is always 'Blanco', a Gale is 'Windy', Taylor is 'Snip', Black is (was) 'Nigger', Wood is 'Knotty', and so forth. The patriotic wireless was loud with ITMAs and Monsewers, Prangs and Bongoes, Winnies and Montys. Those who came of age in those terrible yet cosy days still revelled in weird nomenclature. Reading Kingsley Amis's letters recently, I noted that he was called (among others) Pig. Pug, Bunny, Pud, Rabbit, Bill, Rinks, Binky and, towards the end, Kingers. He called his second wife, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Bird, Min, Minnie, Piney-top, Piney, Tiny and Wag. Her kid brother was (and is) Monkey — I never heard him called anything else, except 'Monk'. Nicknames are protean. Kingsley called his friends names such as Gouger, Stud and Uncle. One (whose second name was Crispin) was variously addressed as `Crippen' and 'Creepin'. Anthony Powell was 'the horse-faced dwarf.
Where are such names today? I call the Poet Laureate 'Supine', but nobody else does. Attempts to nickname Margaret Thatcher failed. Perfect targets such as Heath and Major acquired no nominal barnacles ('Grocer' and 'the Minor' proved nonadhesive). Even Clinton, for godsakes, escaped. Lord Chancellor Brougham acquired a score of nicknames, but the present incumbent, an eminently ridiculous Scot, has none that I know of. We no longer call the Scotch `Sawneys' or the Irish 'Paddies' or the Welsh 'Taffies'. The French are still frogs and the Americans Yanks, but that's about it. All the other national nicknames are forbidden. It's all part of the decline of imagination, of simple humour, of fun. Which reminds me: Amis, in one of his letters to Philip Larkin, refers to me as 'that red-haired papist thug'. Thanks, Pud.
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