I'm so glad there are other nuts out there like me, Helen, and another who sent a PM on the subject!

When I was in BC last fall, my supervisor was impressed at my ability to remember numbers (we were always giving out the phone number to our hotel, or the address for couriers, and I was the one who always knew it, even after only being in the hotel for a couple of days - because I see patterns in the numbers that help me remember). It was quite useful when we wanted to contact the guy about the public dock, and his three (!) phone numbers were posted outside, and we were with no paper. So I just took a minute or two to memorize them, while my supervisor wandered back to the van looking for paper. I can still remember two of them!

Unfortunately I don't ride elevators in tall buildings much. We don't really have any properly tall buildings here! But I love finding patterns in phone numbers, addresses, room numbers, birthdates...

Dag calls me his "little abacus".
As I read this, I thought you were going to say that is was because he could always count on you!

I dislike my wife's name pretty much, so I always call her "Darling." My problem comes when I need to introduce her, when I have to struggle to remember what her real name is! If I have to call her from another part of the house, I usually use the term, "You old bat!" which has become a standing joke, not least because it shocks/amuses visitors who don't know us very well.

My daughter and son, when very small, were known to us as "Poppy" and "Grolly." These days, they refer to me (but not to my face) as "the old man;" I can't complain, as this was the title bestowed on my dear father by my brothers and I.

he could always count on you!

I'll have to pass that along!

Now, on to parental names..When my brother and I discuss my parents as a group, they are "the parental units". Meant in a loving way, of course.

the parental unit

Abbreviated PU?

i usually don't talk about this stuff, because, well words are almost normal. we all talk and read, and write a bit.. but playing numbers games in your head.. that's way too wierd!


Not at all, Helen. You should meet Faldage!! (oh, that's right, you already did )

and yeah, as you know, faldage and i did (and do!) exchange PM every once in a while.. we wierdos do have this ability to recognize each other..
great minds do think alike, you know..
or is it shallow streams all run the same way?

one of them!

3, 9, 18 (number, square, cube)

18? cube? Of what?

You want to play a number game in your head, try figuring out in your head if there ane more Friday the 13ths or Tuesday the 13ths.

try figuring out in your head if there ane more Friday the 13ths or Tuesday the 13ths.

Obviously dependent upon the time-period selected.

The mental calucation is simplified somewhat by noting that if Tuesday is the 13th of a 31-day month (and 7/12th of the months qualify), then Friday will be the 13th day of the following month. (E.g. in 2002 August 13 is a Tuesday; September 13 is a Friday.)

I sometimes refer to my parents as "the rents".

"the rents"

yeahbut®

that makes you a rent girl - better tear that one out!

Well, as many of you know, my younger son is usually called "Foul Spawn of Satan," or "Foul Spawn" for short; in public, I often address him as "Bucket." My older son is "Benners" more often than not. For a while, he wanted to be called "Basket" as a companion name to "Bucket," but I think that he realized that the implications of the nickname were uncomplimentary. (like FSOS is laudatory)

Seems like the lease you can do. Which one was the evil of two lessors?

Well for my beloved there is Chérie, or if being silly, chevreuil.

For the children: minou or petit chou are the most common.
One of my nephews (age 3) is referred to as Dr. Destructo.

My parents: Aged P (works for both)

Others I remember for my siblings were:

Michaelmouse (Michael)
Lillybets (Elisabeth)
Mugwumps (Marguerite)
CathCath (Catherine)

I don't think my oldest brother ever had such an appellation and, of course, mine is classified.

Friend of ours had twins......"Search" and "Destroy"

stales

One of my now-grown children Hi, CJ! would never forgive her dad for letting it be known that she was called, as an infant, our chubby-cheeked chickadee.

Dr. Sereno (from the "cusp" thread) commented, "My mother nicknamed me "Buddha" for my serene composure as an infant."

[and added: "That nickname was quickly forgotten after ... the start of a troubled career in public school." Kids!]

Back before the steam engine I made up a word of endearment. Well, me and Pal Al Saunders did, Tank and Major Hate were there but they were passed out in the back seat. What we needed was a suitable disdainful term for "girl". What we were was the best dancers and the best dressers on the beach and we could hardly be seen mouthing yesterdays lame terms like Chick, Broad, Split-Tail, or Bitch. Could we?
Finally, in sync with the last can of beer we decided on "Squench". Yeah, somehow demeaning but not too much.

We were the coolest of the cool so soon after, bopsters in Atlanta, Birminghan, and Panama City were calling their squenches "Squenches". And rightly so because they were.

Time passed, the steam engine was invented and last year in an enviornmental Newsletter a former squench of mine came back to haunt me. She wrote...

"...back then Milo had a special name for me. He called me a Squench. I think that it was a contraction of Squaw and Wench, but I didn't mind."

So there you have it, spelling, definition, origin. But alas, after the last bopsters bipped their last bop the term fell into disuse, so much so that you hardly hear it anymore.

On just one occasion I introduced the Late Great Captain as "John, my second husband." He smiled and seemed to take it in good part. However several days later introducing me he said : "This is Ann, my first wife."
We both, at once, stopped using those phrases!

Which reminded me of one of my less glorious moments ... but since it's language-related: My first marriage started going pear-shaped from, oooh, about day 1. Shortly before the final curtain, my wife and I had an incandescent row not long before going to a friend's party. The car journey to the venue was accomplished in companionably poisonous silence, a fairly normal condition for us by then.

There were some people there we didn't know, and I was introduced to them, but only after I'd had more than one drink. Well, more than several, actually. I then introduced my spouse as "This is ____, my ex-wife." She (naturally enough, and with a couple of drinks inside her as well) reponded, without thinking: "We're still married!", to which I replied "It's all a matter of timing."

Whoops.

One of my nearest and dearest male friends, calls me "doll". It never fails to bring a smile to my face!

But another of my male friends, has always referred to me as "darlin'". This too, I loved, until the day I overheard him say to another friend, "in Texas, when you can't remember their name, we call 'em darlin'!" Kinda took the sweetness out of it for me!

Rouspeteur mentioned "Michaelmouse" for Michael, to which I add the German version: "Dreamaus" for Andrea

Since taking the name Keiva, I've taken to calling my wife-of-25-years my kalleh, which is Yiddish for my "bride". She says it makes her feel like a young girl.

To twenty-five more, my shayn kalleh!