Anonym feels better than pseudonym when applied to a handle that I use. Upon spotting anonym I was surprised not to have known about it, given my interest in anonymity.

I hadn't heard that one before, I like it.

Never knew the use of anonym as such either; pseudonym has this little ring of falseness to it. A false name , so I felt like looking it up:

Bartleby.com
Syllabication: pseu-do
Adjective: False or counterfeit
Etymology : from pseudo

Pseudo ,noun: a person who makes deceitful pretenses;
adjective: (often used in combination) not genuine but having the appearance of
(Example: "A pseudo esthete")

Etymology:
pseudo: comb. form meaning "false, feigned, erroneous," from Gk. pseudo-, comb. form of pseudes "false," or pseudos "falsehood," both from pseudein "to deceive." The prefix has been used as a stand-alone word for "false person, pretender" since c.1380.

I would say with a pseudonym pretty much everyone knows who it refers to. Anonym works much better for most web purposes. Nobody knows you're a dog.

This is interesting when you dig into the etymology of these words. Whereas pseudonym comes from "false", anonym comes from "lacking, not having", shading the meaning away from "fake name" to "nameless". If you search around, one synonym you'll see is nom de guerre. Knowing the "guerre" part had to be war, I find this a bit strange: "war name"? And then why not "nom de plume" for a synonym? Justing musing this morning.... :0)

I've never heard pseudo used as a noun - must be a neologism.

How can a handle be an anonym if anonym means lacking a name? I don't think a forum handle is either a pseudonym or an anonym. I don't think anonym exists at all as a word - you can't have a nameless name; and a handle is not a false name, it is usually a nickname. Sometimes it can even be your real name! A pseudonym is a real life name not your own that you take on for reasons of anonymity (eg a celebrity wanting to avoid paparazzi) or for nefarious reasons, or if you are a spy, etc. The Pook is not a pseudonym because it is not a name at all.

Yes, you end up a stray dog once you start looking up things. Etymology is a captivating thing, leading from one word to another. I'm looking for restraint rather than running astray.(sofar pretty unsuccesful)

I was inclined to agree with Pook til I looked it up

http://onelook.com/?w=anonym+&ls=a

I'm quite sure you mean something else here, but..

anonym
1. A person whose name is not given, who remains nameless. (Often anonyme, as in Fr.)
1812 BYRON in Moore Life (1866) 166, I should hardly wish a contest with..all the anonymes and synonymes of Committee Candidates. 1866 DE MORGAN Budg. Parad. 10 Among my anonymes is a gentleman who is angry at my treatment of the ‘poor but thoughtful’ man who, etc. 1878 H. H. GIBBS Ombre 78 Sir Anonym (as..[Dr. Pole in Macmillan 1875]..calls the third player) being at Belinda's right hand, and the Baron at her left.

2. A fictitious designation, concealing the real name of a writer; a pseudonym. (Cf. synonym.)
1866 Anti-Slavery Rep. 2 July 169/1 The writer, who signs himself St. Jago de la Vega, is scarcely veiled under his anonym. 1882 Nonconf. 5 May 401/3 The critic crowing loudly behind his anonym sneers at Dr. Hutton. [OED2]

perhaps you'd agree that the appellation 'anon' that you often see attached to citations is an anonym?!

-ron o.

p.s. - Date: Tue Aug 1 00:22:50 EDT 1995
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--anonym

First off, "The Pook" most definitely IS a name, because it's what at least one person calls you, making it a name! So there!

tsuwm: Here's a grin for today: When I was young, I thought "Anonymous" was a famous person, maybe Greek or something, who wrote a whole lot of stuff... LOL! :0)

When I lived in Santa Fe, NM, for one summer I lived on Camino sin Nombre. So what was the name of that street?

Road to nowhere?

No-name Street?

Did the Nameless Street have numbers?

Hmmm, seems a bit oxymoronic (Is that a word? It got red-lined...) "Street Without a Name" or "Nameless Street". There is at least one English counterpart, Nameless Street in Manning, Iowa. Street names can be so bizarre, as can town names. Faldage, you know a mess of weirdly named towns around NY state, such as Busti, Hoosick, and Middlesex, but one of my favorites is Scaggsville, Maryland. If anyone lives in these towns, rest assured, I am laughing with you, not at you.... :0)

Or she would be laughing with you if you were laughing.

What? You're not laughing? Well, that's hardly twosleepy's fault now, is it?

I once lived on a street named Dingle Bingle Hill Terrace. (honest!) The worst part was that the whole street was only 4 houses long.

There is a place in Tasmania called Nowhere Else:
Google Maps Nowhere Else

It's on Nowhere Else Rd, and near Lake Nowhere Else. Where else would it be?

We are individually named by another or others, most often by our parents, before we get the opportunity to name ourselves. To go by a self-authored name, in a one-name situation, is to go without a name that one was named by a person or persons other than oneself; so, an anonym could be regarded as a name of one sense that is other than and hence without a name of another sense. Or that's my current defense of a word I've taken a liking to.

To insist that anonym can mean only without a name is to fall prey to the etymological fallacy.

Very good!!
Did it survive the bad storm I saw on the news?
Or was it blown to somewhere?

etymological fallacy. Thanks. I sensed there was such a thing, but wasn't aware of the term and its currency. I think I'll use it, hopefully without committing it. Dropping the term early on in a discussion of a word's etymology might flush out anyone who will concede no possibility of fallacy in his thinking. Guessing and play-rationalizing are more fun among humble folks.

I'm familiar with the etymological fallacy (though it is more often applied to modern misunderstandings of ancient words). However, I wasn't aware that 'anonym' actually had a usage yet. I thought it was just a made up word, in which case all I had to go on is the lexical meaning of its component parts, which I think was the definition someone gave, wasn't it? I wasn't making the etymological fallacy - that is to ignore the meaning that a word has come to have apart from or despite the history of its formation from other words. I just doubted that the word is used at all.

And just for the record, I was wrong about something once before - that was the time I thought I was wrong but it turned out I was right all along!

No it's still Nowhere Else as far as I know.

So, our little storm even made the news in Holland?

The South West of Tasmania had hurricane force winds, but fortunately no one lives there, it is largely an unpopulated wilderness. Some houses in Hobart and Launceston had roofs blown off, however, and there was a bit of tree damage here and there. The wind wasn't so bad where we are. It didn't trouble the big Copper Beech and Silver Birch trees in our front yard at all.

March was a weird month for weather here - we've had all sorts of hottest, coldest, wettest, driest, windiest, etc records recently.

B&M OED gives an 1812 citation for the meaning '[a] person whose name is not given, who remains nameless.' The earliest citation for the synonym of pseudonym is 1865.

Ah, so it's a person, not a name. It's more like the terms ghostwriter or proxy or absentee than the term pseudonym - in that it describes the state of a person, not the name they take (or don't take).

why do I bother, even?

-joe bfstplk

Good question.

It's an ungrateful world and we are part of it. /anon.

A) tsuwm posted that thing two days ago. Lotsa posts under the bridge since then.

2) The Pook made a post that seemed as though he had forgotten tsuem's post, too. It needed answering.

Þ) Whaddus I sposed to do? Remember tsuwm's post? I don't think so. Look it up in the OED (which tsuwm didn't even bother to mention that's where he got his)? Sounds good to me.

tsuwm>[OED2]

faldo>Look it up in the OED (which tsuwm didn't even bother to mention that's where he got his)? Sounds good to me.

<sigh>

Yet it was a post that could hardly be overlooked.
(Maybe one point deducted from the Hogwash-lute for whoever overlooked tsuwms post? I hope Jackie is allright and did not both loose and forget the thrapple definition.)
Which if I had overlooked the post would bring me to the total of -1. How sad !

I hope Jackie is allright and did not both loose and forget the thrapple definition. I was feeling under the weather last night, but am fine today, thank you. Sorry for the delay!

Some houses in Hobart ... had roofs blown off Egad, I'd better write to paulb. Glad you're okay, Pookie!

Sorry, I don't read everything as slowly as I should...

Mantled times two? It was quite funny to read Faldage saying you had not mentioned the OED when the phrase B&M OED was clearly visible in your quoted post.

Ummm,

The B&M OED mention was from my post.

I get OED, but what does B&M stand for, please?

what does B&M stand for

Brick and mortar, i.e., the print version rather than the online one.

especially, evidently, where the two are identical. so as to differentiate, as it were.

-joe (not to be confused with btfsplk) bfstplk

And as we all know btfsplk is correct.

ha! we've been down this road before, too.

-joe bfstplk

edit - just to obviousize all that, it's entirely possible that Frank Frazetta, who ghosted for Al Capp, deliberately misspelled Joe's name to put his personal imprint on the comic.

edit² - or maybe he couldn't remember how Al spelled it.

Or maybe he purposely misspelled it to avoid confusion with Mr. Mxyztplk.

bfstplk - I allus see that as beefsteak. skipping the plank.

Brick and mortar to mean a store which has a physical building, I accept readily, but I'm not ready to accept B&M for any physical entity whatsoever. In addition, you could order a "B&M OED" from a non-B&M store (e.g. amazon.com) - isn't that like ordering a leatherbound OED from a vegetarian store. (^_^)