I'm curious as to how it was pronounced. "The Meatman, Magic Matt Weiner"? Or more in a rush: "The Meatman Magic Matt Weiner"? Or another possibility altogether?
eb, if 100 people choose a two-initial handle, how many of those 100 would pick the first letter of the first and last name? A very high percentage, I would think.
To 5: Say it all at once, no pauses. You don't have to rush it, though. It's more about using the flow to try to capture Matt's grandeur. (Actually, I think part of the point of long, phrasal nicknames is that using them instead of a short nickname prolongs the moment of discomfort of the bearer of the name. Sadistic, true, but that's largely the point of this sort of thing.)
So you couldn't say for instance, "and in the left corner, the man who puts the philosophical rigor in rigor mortis, the one, the only, the Meatman, Magic Matt Weinnnnaaaaah!"? Where "Meatman" would be a bit lower than the preceding and following words, and "Magic" higher than the rest?
Once I knew that there was a grad school nickname and that someone was in a position to tell us, I would have been derelict, SB, not to find out and share.
I would have been derelict, SB, not to find out and share.
I know. Very infrequently, when the decorum gap here grows to a goatly widness, so large it could swallow a goat, I recall what it is to be decent to your brethren and sistren, and contemplate such a mode of being with wistful resignation.
21: I've been thinking that if I ever participate in one of those APA invited Symposia I will try to get the chair to play intro music for each participant, the way baseball teams often play little musical tags as the batter steps to the plate. Mine would be the intro to "Showdown," by the Sugarhill Gang meets the Furious Five. My opponent's will be "Punks Jump Up To Get Beat Down."
Huh. Single-token pseudonyms are pretty good at deflecting certain name-centric putdowns (catanyms?), which for reasons of tradition or prosody seem to require both first and last names.
Compare:
Ben "nougating my analness" Wolfson
*Ogged "nougating my analness"
Also:
The Lamentable Analness Nougating Ben Wolfson
*The Lamentable Analness Nougating Ogged
In each case, the second, asterisked example feels essentially incomplete, cut short of its surnominal climax. I've often wished ogged had a provisional last name reserved for use in these circumstances.
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
Single-token names are riper candidates for titular disparagement, though
You may have something there. Unfortunately for you, "B-dub the Anal Nougat" can be sung to the tune of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", while your ogged-centric version runs afoul of our distaste for clumsy melisma.
No, it just provides an excuse to pronounce it "Oggéd," which is something that should be done more often anyway. In fact I'm surprised that there isn't already a specimen in the Museum of Bridgeplatica.
The problem is that the name is of someone I've come across in my research, and I'm not sure I want to give that away. This seems foolish, though, because I doubt anyone here could ID me based on that (and there's probably enough on my blog for people who do know me to ID me anyway) but the fact is that not a lot of people have worked on what I was working on.
Ha, I have read those eb, but have refrained from blogging about them. It's so unpleasant to be in the middle of quarrels like that. Of course, there's the issue of the violence that writer's do to their subjects, but I'm quite conflicted about that, and don't know what to say.
Yeah, I was considering blogging it, taking the Times article as fiction and evaluating it as a story (so as to try to put aside the whole quarrel), but then realized that I didn't have much to say that wouldn't seem like a bunch of snark.
There's something in there to be said about fiction and history and reliable/unreliable narrators, but I'd rather try to say it about a different piece of writing. Don't know if I ever will, though.
There's something to be said there for the virtue of pseudonymity, and the inexplicable and I think inexcusable violence of not deploying it when it would so obviously do no harm and so much good.
Matt, I'm sorry.
Posted by bza | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 4:15 PM
bza was acting under extreme duress, after all.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 4:16 PM
That's no excuse.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 5:01 PM
And it wouldn't be done even to reveal bza's grad school nickname, since it would be identifying to those in the know.
I don't think you can go back to lurking, though.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 5:02 PM
I'm curious as to how it was pronounced. "The Meatman, Magic Matt Weiner"? Or more in a rush: "The Meatman Magic Matt Weiner"? Or another possibility altogether?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 5:09 PM
I was hoping it would have something to do with Oscar Meyer.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 5:21 PM
I do sympathize, however, because my last name sounds a lot like, but is spelled differently than, the name of a common food item.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 5:26 PM
Burrito?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 6:02 PM
I was thinking Bacon. (Bakken?)
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 6:06 PM
I was thinking Bacon
Aren't we all always thinking that?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 6:07 PM
I'm almost never thinking that.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 6:07 PM
On what basis do you assume that I post under initials that correspond to those of my real name?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 6:08 PM
Because I do.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 6:09 PM
I thought "eb" was your first name. "Eb Burrito" had a pleasing ring to it.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 6:09 PM
Soundex Code for bacon = B250
Other surnames sharing this Soundex Code:
BACON | BASCOM | BASHAM | BASKIN | BAUCOM | BAUGHEN | BAUGHN | BEACHAM | BEASON | BECKHAM | BEECHAM | BEESON | BEGGAN | BEZONA | BICKHAM | BIGHAM | BISSON | BOGAN | BOGGAN | BOJSEN | BOYKIN | BOYSEN | BUCHAN | BUGIN |
Soundex Code for Burrito = B630
Other surnames sharing this Soundex Code:
BAIRD | BARADA | BARD | BARRATT | BARRET | BARRETT | BARTEE | BARTH | BARTO | BEAIRD | BEARD | BIRD | BIRT | BOARD | BORT | BOURDEAU | BOWARD | BRADDY | BRADT | BRADY | BRATT | BREED | BRETT | BRITT | BROAD | BROADAWAY | BROADWAY | BRODIE | BRODY | BROTT | BURAT | BURD | BURDUE | BURT | BYARD | BYRD |
Soundex Code for banana = B550
Other surnames sharing this Soundex Code:
BANNON | BAUMAN | BAUMANN | BEAMAN | BEEMAN | BENHAM | BENYON | BINYON | BOHANNAN | BOHANNON | BOHANON | BOMAN | BONHAM | BONIN | BONINE | BOWMAN | BUHMANN | BYNAM | BYNON | BYNUM |
the soundex codes kind of suck.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 6:12 PM
Fair enough. But even if they are my initials, which may or may not be true, why assume that they are the first and last ones?
I did have a real name in mind when I chose them, by the way.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 6:14 PM
eb, if 100 people choose a two-initial handle, how many of those 100 would pick the first letter of the first and last name? A very high percentage, I would think.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 6:26 PM
I'd think so too. But that doesn't mean that I'm one of that high percentage, though I might be.
This is similar to the Wolfson principle of pseudonymity, but initialized.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 6:30 PM
To 3: I agree. Peccavi.
To 4: I'm comfortable being outed to that extent.
To 5: Say it all at once, no pauses. You don't have to rush it, though. It's more about using the flow to try to capture Matt's grandeur. (Actually, I think part of the point of long, phrasal nicknames is that using them instead of a short nickname prolongs the moment of discomfort of the bearer of the name. Sadistic, true, but that's largely the point of this sort of thing.)
Posted by bza | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 8:37 PM
my last name sounds a lot like, but is spelled differently than, the name of a common food item.
Uhhh, Mulva?
I did have a real name in mind when I chose them, by the way.
Ernest Borgnine?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 8:40 PM
Say it all at once, no pauses.
So you couldn't say for instance, "and in the left corner, the man who puts the philosophical rigor in rigor mortis, the one, the only, the Meatman, Magic Matt Weinnnnaaaaah!"? Where "Meatman" would be a bit lower than the preceding and following words, and "Magic" higher than the rest?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 8:50 PM
Oh, I think you could.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 8:54 PM
Not the name of a person who lived in the 20th century. (This eliminates E.B. White, too.)
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 9:44 PM
Edmund Burke.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 11:05 PM
Don't even get me started on that #$%#! French Revolution. I can't believe they let things go that far.
Um, no, actually it's not Burke. It's not someone many people have ever heard of.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 11:22 PM
Guess that eliminates Emily Bronte.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-20-05 11:50 PM
Encyclopedia Brown
Posted by joe o | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 12:13 AM
Eli Bowen?
Eugene Berry?
Emmett Blackwelder?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 12:22 AM
I'm having enough trouble with R.A.B. right now.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 6:25 AM
Yay, it's outing the pseudonymous day! I'm Sidney Biggles-Jones.
Actually, I'm here to ask ogged why he gots to be like that. Why you gots to be like that, ogged?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 7:12 AM
19: is this true? A pearl is a lynx is a blog!
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 7:17 AM
Like what, exactly, SB?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 8:45 AM
Like getting all escalatory with the Weiner-humiliation.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 8:50 AM
Once I knew that there was a grad school nickname and that someone was in a position to tell us, I would have been derelict, SB, not to find out and share.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 8:53 AM
What does IYKWIM stand for?
Posted by bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 9:20 AM
If you know what I mean.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 9:22 AM
AITYD.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 9:23 AM
It's an acronym, if you know what I mean.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 9:23 AM
I would have been derelict, SB, not to find out and share.
I know. Very infrequently, when the decorum gap here grows to a goatly widness, so large it could swallow a goat, I recall what it is to be decent to your brethren and sistren, and contemplate such a mode of being with wistful resignation.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 9:24 AM
It's not as if the manner in which you found out allowed for you not to share.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 9:28 AM
You're taking this much harder than Weiner.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 9:29 AM
Precisely, Ben, precisely.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 9:30 AM
I just endured some intense vicarious mortification watching Freaks and Geeks, so my sensitivity to this kind of teasing is abnormally high.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 9:32 AM
Hey, Ogged said "harder than Weiner."
21: I've been thinking that if I ever participate in one of those APA invited Symposia I will try to get the chair to play intro music for each participant, the way baseball teams often play little musical tags as the batter steps to the plate. Mine would be the intro to "Showdown," by the Sugarhill Gang meets the Furious Five. My opponent's will be "Punks Jump Up To Get Beat Down."
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 9:44 AM
Wouldn't your opponent get to pick his music?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 9:52 AM
It's my idea.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 9:56 AM
Also, IJRLS "Punks jump up to get beat down."
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 9:57 AM
bza gave you permission to reveal his nickname, you know.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 9:58 AM
Oops. "IJLS."
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 9:58 AM
"Cash money," 'cause he's cold and hard.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 9:58 AM
I'm glad to see that the speculation has turned elsewhere.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 10:19 AM
You're not out of the woods yet, Eva Braun.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 10:21 AM
You've found my identity! What gave it away? My tendency to sing songs like "Adolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer" every Christmas?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 10:24 AM
Huh. Single-token pseudonyms are pretty good at deflecting certain name-centric putdowns (catanyms?), which for reasons of tradition or prosody seem to require both first and last names.
Compare:
Ben "nougating my analness" Wolfson
*Ogged "nougating my analness"
Also:
The Lamentable Analness Nougating Ben Wolfson
*The Lamentable Analness Nougating Ogged
In each case, the second, asterisked example feels essentially incomplete, cut short of its surnominal climax. I've often wished ogged had a provisional last name reserved for use in these circumstances.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 10:25 AM
Single-token names are riper candidates for titular disparagement, though:
His Nougating Analness Ogged
Ogged the Anal Nougat
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 10:29 AM
Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 10:35 AM
It's wierd that the word in #55 that's grossing me out is "nougat."
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 10:36 AM
Nope.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 10:38 AM
No hints?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 10:47 AM
Frederick Barbarossa's little-known younger brother, Ernie.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 10:52 AM
Single-token names are riper candidates for titular disparagement, though
You may have something there. Unfortunately for you, "B-dub the Anal Nougat" can be sung to the tune of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", while your ogged-centric version runs afoul of our distaste for clumsy melisma.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 10:52 AM
Was Barbarossa a name, an epithet, or a use/mention problem?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 10:55 AM
clumsy melisma
Is it |oggd| or |oggéd|?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 10:56 AM
No, it just provides an excuse to pronounce it "Oggéd," which is something that should be done more often anyway. In fact I'm surprised that there isn't already a specimen in the Museum of Bridgeplatica.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 10:56 AM
64 to 61, and 63 beat me. 62: Red beards are genetic, duh.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 10:57 AM
Lamarckian, eh?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 10:58 AM
Was Barbarossa a name, an epithet, or a use/mention problem?
I can't remember how this discussion went last time out, but Wikipedia thinks it's a nickname.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 10:59 AM
Did Fred dye his beard?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 10:59 AM
We've been over the question in 63.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 11:00 AM
No wait, I'm not engaging this. 60 is funny as it stands.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 11:00 AM
The problem is that the name is of someone I've come across in my research, and I'm not sure I want to give that away. This seems foolish, though, because I doubt anyone here could ID me based on that (and there's probably enough on my blog for people who do know me to ID me anyway) but the fact is that not a lot of people have worked on what I was working on.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 11:01 AM
In fact I'm surprised that there isn't already a specimen in the Museum of Bridgeplatica.
For whatever reason, oggéd doesn't do it for me.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 11:04 AM
Well, tell us your real name, and then we'll find out what your research is on and we can guess who it is.
Or just tell us your grad school nickname.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 11:04 AM
We've been over the question in 63.
When you do that, is it purely informational, or is there an element of meliorism in it?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 11:06 AM
Everything I do, slol, is aimed at the improvement of the lot of humanity.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 11:07 AM
Man, I got nuthin' today; any blogging topic suggestions?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 11:11 AM
State of your belly lint.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 11:12 AM
This article and its response.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 11:14 AM
Ha, I have read those eb, but have refrained from blogging about them. It's so unpleasant to be in the middle of quarrels like that. Of course, there's the issue of the violence that writer's do to their subjects, but I'm quite conflicted about that, and don't know what to say.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 11:18 AM
Yeah, I was considering blogging it, taking the Times article as fiction and evaluating it as a story (so as to try to put aside the whole quarrel), but then realized that I didn't have much to say that wouldn't seem like a bunch of snark.
There's something in there to be said about fiction and history and reliable/unreliable narrators, but I'd rather try to say it about a different piece of writing. Don't know if I ever will, though.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 11:23 AM
There's something to be said there for the virtue of pseudonymity, and the inexplicable and I think inexcusable violence of not deploying it when it would so obviously do no harm and so much good.
Posted by slol | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 11:37 AM
Well, if you want to go for really depressing, there's this.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 11:42 AM
Jesus. It's so strange to have that country run by religious nuts. It would be like making Roy Moore king of Chicago.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 11:46 AM
re 81: That too. I can't believe the names weren't changed.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07-21-05 11:48 AM