See Dave above.

I know some russian - ootka - it means 'duck' as in feathery thing not crouch down.

Ordinarily I use Mergli as my ID which was how a drunken friend once addressed our cat Moggy. But seeing as our Jon was just Jon I thought I'd be Adam for a change. I can pretty much guarantee that if you ever see Mergli anywhere it'll be me.

Mine's even more interesting.

At the time when I signed up there were only ever about half a dozen people posting regularly anyway, so to use your first name was fine. Unfortuneately there was already a Sarah here (what are the odds?) so I used the initial from my last name. Hence I became Sarah B.

Are you all asleep yet? WAKE UP!!!

Elsewhere you may see me as:

Sarah74656 - As my name is Sarah and the USS Voyager (Yes, I am a closet Trekkie) has a registry number of 74656.

Carter74656 - For when I needed a gender-less username that I could remember, or Sarah74656 was already taken. Carter is for Sam Carter on Stargate SG-1 (Yes, I am a closet Gater also).

Essbee - If you don't get it, say it out loud and remember my initials.

Tinkerbell - Someone once called it me and it kinda stuck. I'm a little cheeky, flirty fairy... go figure.



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There's a hole in my creativity bucket and it's all leaked out.

Erm, mine's been my 'other' name for so long now, I answer to them both interchangably. It derives from my too curly hair (see also, fuzzywig, phuzz etc.) and I use it becuase, well, tom smith is a bit too generic but not anonymous enough if that makes sense, (the spelling doesn't I know).



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Magda is what most of my friends call me at this point, even the ones who've known me since before I was called that.

It's derived from the name I use in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), which is Lady Magdalena Vogelsang.

That name, in turn, was chosen in part because early in my SCA days (1990ish) at our local Wassail revel, I played Mary Magdalene in a very silly (and somewhat tacky) mime ballad in which I attempted to hire a private eye (complete with trenchcoat and fedora) to look for a missing body. I got the part mainly because I had the cleavage and low cut dress for it. And I got to smack the gumshoe a couple times for oogling too blatantly--which was great fun since he was a professional actor, and fell across the room quite impressively when I swung at him and missed (on purpose).

After this, there was one woman in particular who could never remember my real name, but instead exlaimed every time she saw me "It's Mary Madgalene!". So when I finally got 'round to picking a proper medieval name, I thought it would be amusing to play on that.

At any rate, when a second 'Deb' joined the local group, she--being only about 5 feet tall and 90 pounds--got called 'Little Deb' (which evolved into 'Snackcake'). In true medieval nomenclature, I would have then become known as 'Big Deb'. But my friends are more polite than that, so they started using my SCA name all the time, and now call me 'Magda', whether we're at an SCA event or not. In fact, many people think it's my legal name.



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"I've often said that the difference between British and American SF TV series is that the British ones have three-dimensional characters and cardboard spaceships, while the Americans do it the other way around."
--Ross Smith

the russian for squirrel is 'belka', though I think belotchka is the diminutive version - you would use this more for someone you really liked for example.

gosh, I actually knew something useful!

What's the Pushkin thing? He's my favourite russian author...

I have the quote written down like this:

veli'kim byt' zhelau
lublu' rossii' chest'
ja mno'go obeschau
yspe'u li - bog vest'


I'll include the translation I have too:

i wish to be  great
i love Russia's honour
i promise a great many things
should i have the time (to do them) - god knows.

I don't know much of Pushkin's work, I got interested when I read a review of a biography, but then lost the name and title. Do you have any recommendations to his work or a biography?

B

not familiar with that one, and googling it doesn't help!

I'd recommend the Queen of Spades, or if you're in the mood for poetry. "The Bronze Horseman". Our russian teacher could quote the first verse in a most impressive manner. He was constantly being asked to speak some russian when people found out what he did, so thought he may as well hit them with something good.

I even remember the first couple of lines.
Na beregu pustilnik voln
Stoyal on, doom velikik poln

looks (and sounds) better in Russian...

And Gogol's 'The Government Inspector'. great fun.

Many thanks for the recommendations, I think "The Bronze Horseman" sounds like my kind of book, I'll definitely go and find that.

B

I use my real name, or a simple contraction of this (such as 'sreeve') so that I don't have trouble about remembering user-names as well as passwords & PIN numbers (& which goes with which).

On a related topic, do any of you have "interesting" nicknames (about which you might be ambivalent...) that you currently DON'T use as user-names online? Because I work as the technician in a school's Chemistry department, and the pupils have nicknames for most of the staff, and they've presumably only heard of one famous laboratory assistant (and, OK, maybe because _ although my eyes are level with each other _ I'm not the most graceful of individuals and sometimes develop a slight speech-impediment when under stress...) they call me... 'Igor'.

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"This was willed where what is willed... can get rather silly."

my name is an obscure refrence to a Terry Pratchett idea, go with what sounds good. Other names he suggested includes siphilous (sp?) and iodine, but I decided not

Not a nickname, but long ago before I was married I got a letter with my name spelt wrong.

My maiden name was Goodacre.

The sender transposed a couple of letters and I ended up as Susan Goodarce.

Exactly!

Mum and Dad gave me this one a number of years ago. Usually I use 'Mayfairwtch' which tends to either offend a number of people or bring out every "pagan" wanna be or wacko. I'll tell you that being stalked really is not much fun!

It's a derivitive of the names of ancestors accused/hung/burned for witchcraft.

belochka: You can find 'the bronze horseman' on the net (both in russian and translated, and even audio versions!)

saves a bit of money...

dave: thanks again. I've found a translation I like the look of, only read the first few lines so I'll go back to read it properly. It starts with a very impressive, martial air.

I used to be called Furry Hat at university, because I wore one during the winter. (The hats really do go back a long way!)



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

No ambivalence for my first 'proper' nickname, I loathed it. I got it at senior school, BT (shortened version of beetroot). i was v. shy and blushed a lot and even teachers made comments about it. It stuck with me for five years and I think it was a contributing factor in me leaving as soon as my exams were over!

I can laugh about it now, mostly.

I've never had any kind of nickname. The only obvious one is Bent, but I stopped that by adopting it before anybody else could. PSD seems to suit me round here, but I've never been known as it in the 'real' world.



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

::curtseys:: Thank you!

I tried just using my real name but someone got there first, so I went for the shortened version. Well, what the kids at school used to call me. If they weren't being nasty..... Then they'd call me something much worse but I don't feel strong enough to go into that right now.

Thanks for bringing up so many painful memories!

Thats the Fforum for you, Disturbing On a Daily Basis ;-)



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