WHERE HAVE ALL THE REDS AND WHITEYS GONE: THE DEATH OF NICKNAMES
by Steven Goldsmith MD
WHERE HAVE ALL THE REDS AND WHITEYS GONE?:
THE DEATH OF NICKNAMES
by Steven Goldsmith MD
Whatever happened to nicknames? Fats, Skinny, Slim, Red, Whitey, Lefty, Shorty, Junior, Duke, PeeWee, Smokey, Buzzy, Swede, Buck, Rusty, Mac, Fuzzy, Sonny, Skippy, Buddy, Bud, Scooter, Butch, and Tiny?
In my Brooklyn youth at least five of eight starting position players on the Dodgers sported nicknames: “Junior” Gilliam, “PeeWee” Reese, “Campy” Campanella, “Sandy” Amoros, “Duke” Snider, with an Italian-American right fielder Carl Furillo dubbed “Skoonj” for the ethnic dish scungilli and also “The Reading Rifle” for his remarkable throwing arm. Their utility outfielder George “Shotgun” Shuba sprayed line drives. Their pitching staff boasted “Preacher” Roe and “Oisk” Erskine. “Red” Barber broadcast games for the Dodgers, then Yankees. Leo “The Lip” Durocher managed their cross-town rivals, the New York Giants, while Sal “The Barber” Maglie pitched for them. As far back as I recall, my Uncle Steve called me “Buzzy.” Why, I have no idea but I never questioned the practice as nicknames sprang from our tongues in those days without a second thought. But no one ever nicknamed my sister—no coincidence as we see below. The only nickname among acquaintances in the past six decades belonged to a fraternity brother, “Smokey.” Then it all stopped.
How many people do you know today who bear a nickname? Not merely a standard variation of their full name, like “Bob” for “Robert,” and not a romantic endearment but a nickname reflecting individual attributes like hair color, typical behavior, personality traits, or achievements? (Ethnic slurs don’t count.) Unless you belong to organized crime (another clue) you are likely to think of few or none. Where have all the Reds and Whiteys gone?
To answer we must understand what nicknames represent. Why have mobsters and bygone ballplayers embraced them but my sister bore none? Why did my uncle and not my mother nickname me? For the same reason Uncle Steve, my godfather, gifted me a football helmet when I was ten and a pipe when I began college; took me to NFL games, played catch. Nicknames are mainly a masculine practice. Males have been the usual christeners and receivers of them, with occasional exceptions for tomboys, wealthy socialites (shall we invite Babe and Bunny to the fish and goose soiree or to the Met Gala?), and hookers.
As they often targeted personal idiosyncrasies, nicknames facilitated masculine connection through affectionate and gently aggressive ribbing that enhanced intimacy and bonding with other males. A verbal equivalent of horseplay, a playful punch on the triceps or a slap on the back.
Beginning in the 1970s and intensifying thereafter, political correctness—in today’s lingo, inclusive language—discouraged nicknames. God forbid you should offend. A practice that lubricated the gears of male bonding thereby faded from our dread of opprobrium. Nicknames, however playfully or fondly intended, became pejoratives. True, some like Tubby and Four Eyes (yours truly when I started wearing glasses in grade school but I survived) traumatized sensitive boys, but the abandonment of nicknaming tossed the baby of male bonding out with the bathwater of protection for society’s marginalized.
It may be no coincidence that the decline of nicknaming coincided with the second wave of feminism that began in the sixties and crescendoed thereafter. At the same time, we increasingly extolled emotional sensitivity as a virtue men must cultivate. Be that as it may, the extinction of nicknames presaged the demasculinization of American culture that continues through today. The signs abound: the demonization through ads and public discourse of “toxic masculinity”; documented reductions in sperm counts and male grip strength; the increased media presence of effeminate and androgynous men; the worship of “strong” women to the exclusion of men (search the covers on your supermarket’s magazine rack to find even one manly model); the epidemic of trans women; the infestation of LGBT’s hetero male “allies" who marinate in performative compassion and guilt. Look no further for signs of this trend than that self-castrating poseur of recent political notoriety, “Tampon Tim.” The guiding ethos being (to invert the lyrics of the “My Fair Lady” song) Why Can’t a Man Be More Like a Woman? Or as radical feminists would have it, Why Can’t We All Be Women (and reproduce by parthenogenesis)?
Case in point, the cover photo of the latest edition of Psychology Today magazine. It depicts a thirtyish man with a sweet smile and hair swept back into what appears to be a bun. With a bit of effort you can smell the beta-male pheromones wafting from the photo. Dressed in business ultra-casual, replete with denims and sockless sneakers, he perches atop a baby carriage, cradling a laptop. The caption reads, “The New Grown-Up: What It Means to Be an Adult Today.” That says it all.
Uncle Steve has been gone 32 years, the victim of a four-pack-a-day habit. If he returned to earth today on a heavenly leave, what he witnessed would shock him. For he was a man of his time, as we all are. When I started dating, he advised me to “Treat ‘em rough.” When I turned 13, he insisted I desist from kissing him and shake hands instead. He was a compulsive competitor with others in everything he did. That trait served him well in business. Warm, generous, nurturing to employees and associates, he was also a charismatic, self-glorifying hustler who became a legendary dealmaker. Steven Spielberg advised Liam Neeson to study home movies of my uncle in order to understand his title character in Schindler’s List, which Spielberg dedicated to Uncle Steve posthumously. After my med school graduation, which he attended, our paths diverged, mine toward a medical career and his toward endless business deals around the world, each bigger than the last, and schmoozing with celebrities. We saw little of each other thereafter. A bit of a fabulist who fancied himself a cinema star, he spent his final days succumbing to cancer in a Los Angeles hospital, having registered there as George Bailey, the hero of It’s a Wonderful Life.
Further evidence of our transition from a masculine to a feminine culture has been the rampant outing, cancelling, and doxing of those with objectionable views, all three tactics being traditional female weapons that solve intra-group conflicts through reputational destruction. Other signs: the virtue-signaling of victimhood; the weaponization of feelings and lived experience over fact and objective reality; protection of and solicitude for the “marginalized” over celebration of merit and competition; youngsters who disintegrate into emotional storms over the slightest of perceived offenses, the antithesis of traditional manliness. In short, we’ve been suffering from societal PMS, worthy of a psychiatric diagnostic code number in the DSM-V.
Woke ideology and the parental coddling of children (described by Jonathan Haidt) have combined to exalt fragility and victimhood, to produce a generation that experiences life itself as a trigger warning, with readiness to take offense at phantoms. An attitude of anticipatory victimhood pervades our culture: the more people think they are supposed to feel hurt, the more they monitor their environs for hurtful behaviors, and the more they persuade themselves to feel hurt from the signals their antennae detect.
Our culture is Daddyphobic. Bicoastal progressives in particular tend to revile strong male authority figures. Think Trump or Putin. Yes, those men possess personality flaws. But the venom directed toward them far exceeds that directed toward female politicians who possess odious personal traits. Unfortunately a culture that denigrates men will disintegrate, as we have been doing. Only when enough of us assume responsibility for reversing our societal degeneration, can we make our world safe again for nicknames.
Here’s to you, Uncle Steve, from Buzzy. RIP.
Women are ruining their children. They don't say "no" to them about anything, either out of guilt from working outside of the home or because they want to be their "best friend." A vast majority of the last two generations are a mess. The are lazy and self-indulgent and when they run into life's inevitable problems, they play the victim, turn to drugs or commit suicide. No one did any of those things when I was growing up. We were merely told "no" and "you are not special." Only the winner got the trophy or ribbon. We need to return to those days.
Superb obs. Grew up in a culture endemic with nick names. They were settled at a young age but were gradually discarded with maturity, unless employed in bonhomie, or as a 'trigger', usually a red flag for baiting or the genesis of an incipient confrontation. But that's how we cut our teeth. No big deal. As they say in NZ, take a 'chill-pill' or just take a 'concrete pill' and harden up.