I wrote a post over the weekend musing about name mungings. It started like this...
I was pondering the other how those nasty tabloids in the UK were turning on that poor Susan Boyle, and calling her "SuBo". Apparently this is nasty because it's similar to "sumo". And because they were calling her that whilst saying many other nasty things and sending undercover newspaper employees (I don't think either "reporters" or "journalists" is appropriate) to harass her.
But it got me thinking about doing this to other people. Our PM is JoKey, perhaps not the number one quality you'd search for. The previous deputy PM is MiCul, so I don't think he'd get upset if you called him that. Then there's WiPe - yes we do actually, at the thought of you making a comeback. Round the other way, there's the rugby player PiWee. I wouldn't say it to his face though.
But politicians and sporties are boring. What about my colleagues? (You knew this was coming, didn't you?) We have the best boss ever - he's "a RoHa".
This is nice, because "aroha" means love in Maori. However other names mean other things (mostly they don't have any meaning at all) and it was felt that this was a bit personal. I'm hoping that nobody took offense - it was just a light hearted look at what fell out. But in hindsight I see how people could have taken offense, even if they didn't.
Apologies to all - I'll try to stick to stellar musings and earworms from now on.
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