More Quick Hits: Nicknames, At, and Uranus

Quick Hit 1:

I've always been a fan of nicknames. They can often be a window to your very soul. You don't get to pick them, so the names are a total reflection of how others see you. You've got your serious nicknames: The Hammer (Hank Arron), The Gipper, and The Decider mostly bring about positive reflections of that person (Hey, Meatloaf once said, "Two out of three ain't bad").

Another use of the nickname are ones that are meant to be insults. When I was a young lad, before cell phones and reality TV, the top three students on the honor roll (me being one) would call each other nicknames like Brain when we were upset with one or the other, which quickly devolved into Half-a-brain, quarter of a brain, brain cell, and my personal favorite, which was often directed at me by the smartest girl in the class in a manner such as this: "Hey, "Quarter of a brain cell on a stick", stop answering all the teacher's questions." It's perfect, because it fit my nerdy nature and my body type. On a side note, my favorite nickname was a combination of insult and pride: Toto the Baton Wacker. It combined a negative nickname (Toto) with an incident in which I got into a fight with a track coach from SUNY Buffalo during the race. Ah, racing, tripping, punching and relay batons. What great memories....

My favorite nicknames use Big in the title like Big Kahuna, Big Cheese, Big Bob, or Big Tuna. Having "Big" in your name is usually very positive, unless the "Big" attached to parts of your body or the F word.

Where is this banter leading? Well, I went to the Colorado Caucuses and I was elected to be the leader of the caucus. Although I never requested people call me this, I had the overwhelming urge to have people call me by a cool nickname that you can only get as the leader of a Caucus. Since I didn't use it there, I think I could still slip the nickname into my regular life. Yep, you've got it. From now on, I should be called:

The Big Cauc.


(By the way, if there is just 1 good thing GWB has done in 8 years, it is making people realize that if you don't vote or participate in the process, you could easily find yourself more screwed than the characters on late night Cinemax. Thanks GWB for getting people to vote!)

Quick Hit 2:

On another note, I've noticed that there are universal things people will laugh at. Things such as bodily noises, groin punches, and Dane Cook get laughed at regularly. Now, I can't figure out the Dane Cook thing, but who hasn't laughed at the other stuff.




In a school setting, this is especially true. A quick burp, toot, or human development lesson can cause snickering, laughing, and general classroom chaos.

But there is another things that can happen. That would be a lesson on Uranus. Both boys, girls, and uncomfortable parents will giggle at the mere mention of the planet. This has become worse now that we've found out that Uranus is a gaseous planet. So as a teacher, you need to either clamp down on the class and let them snicker inside, or get it over with early, so that they aren't uncontrolably laughing under their breaths for the entire class. So I suggest the following ice breakers to get the laughing out of the way early, when teaching about Uranus. Or, if you're trying to break your class and want to write someone up for acting inappropriately, these would work as well. You'll have a kid out of control pretty quickly.

Uranus is gassy.
Uranus is blue.
Uranus is a gas giant.
Uranus is huge.
Due to the gasses on Uranus, if we were there we would find that Uranus stinks.
Because Uranus is a gas giant, we can never land on it. That means that we'll never be able to touch Uranus.

Don't tell me your aren't kind of laughing, at least inside. Now imagine that with middle school kids. You can forget about teaching for at least 10 minutes.

Quick hit 3:

Finally, what's the deal with the sudden ending of sentences with AT? I hear from loud cell phone talkers and even my wife when asking the location of the person they are talking to, "Where you at?" I mean, it's may be worse than "Where you be?" or anyone that uses "Seen" after the pronouns I and We.

Now, I'm no language snob. Well, maybe I am, but that's beside the point. I don't care that it's improper English. I care that it takes away from Blazing Saddles, one of the funniest movies of all time. When Cleavon Little (the sherrif) shouts 'Where the white women at?' out in front of the racist gang, it's funny for many reasons, including the "at" at the end. Now when young people watch the movie, they don't know why that lines funny since everyone uses "at" at the end of sentences now.

Hold on: My wife is informing me right now that the whole movie isn't funny and no one will understand the previous paragraph. I think I might have to sick Mongo on her. For like Mongo, I am "Only a pawn in game of life."

Now because of all this "Where you at?" and "Where they at?" "at" is no longer funny. It's just bad English that no one knows is bad English. Alas, time has passed me by. It's so depressing. Maybe some caffine will help my mood. Now, where's my Mountain Dew at?