Smithers is rarely used as a word, but it does come up again and again, as a "name" for incompitennt handy man. (tho, in Fawlty Towers, they used O'Reilly)
smithereens is very small peices..(and things might well be blown to smithereens!)
in NY, a sporting goods company, the Spalding company, makes a small pink hand ball, and these are always called spaldeens. a neat play, since the G tend to be dropped anyway-- there is a real vowel shift to ee(n) from i(ng).
the Aileen now use as a girl names, is really "Little darling", my mother detested it as name! and Colleen, is said to be uncertain.. but since my own sisters were affectionately called "Lumps of Coal" (black hair/dark eyed, black irish) i suspect colleen is a "little lump of coal".
anthracite coal is really quite beautiful... It's shiny, hard, pure black-- and compaired to peat, expensive, and desirable.. a little lump of coal might not sound complimentary today, but i think it could be a quite nice thing to be compared too.
