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The Nicknaming of America (Transcript)

by Nancy Farghalli

George W. Bush's White House loves the past.  Evil empires lurk;   Star Wars is hot again. But the biggest blast from the past is someting that Bush learned from the good ol' days of prep school and his college fraternity--how to turn someone's name into a story.

Nicknames are back.  And, Bush is the master of monikers.  

Condoleeza Rice is the guru, his national security mastermind.  Karl Rove is the boy genius, his electoral mastermind.  Maureen Dowd is the cobra, his own anti-Bush media mastermind. Senator Olympia Snowe is the big O, his, well, Maine mastermind. And, who could forget Thunderbolt Lindsey, the name for Bush's economic advisor Larry Lindsey? Well, Bush actually did.  Lindsay got his own thunderbolt a few months ago; he's no longer advising.      

In the last few years, abbreviations have relegated our nickname pastime.  We no longer tell secrets on the down low, now we speak on the dl.  Maybe abbreviations sprung from our flirtation with a dot-com nanosecond lifestyle, when everything moved at the speed of light. Out with creativity, well that's not entirely true.  Creative accounting was in.  Creative nicknames were out.  

Bush's favorite sport, baseball, is a perfect example.  Remember the days when the sultan, the splinter, and the shoeless reigned supreme, when Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, and Joe Jackson had creative nicknames that told a story.  Ruth, the sultan of swat, had a larger than life personality and bat.  Williams, the splendid splitter, was baseball poetry, swinging bats with a fluidity that no one had ever seen.  Jackson, shoeless Joe, scandalized for throwing the 1919 World Series, once played without shoes, running down line drives and fly outs.

Now, we have a threesome of curtain equipment--the rods composed of A-Rod, I-Rod, and F-Rod.  Alex Rodriguez arguably is the best short stop in the game, Ivan Rodriguez is a hall of fame caliber catcher, and Felix Rodriguez is the Angels pitcher who shined in the last World Series.   These abbreviations say nothing about who they are or how they play.

Baseball still has some storytelling The big unit, a 6 foot 10 Randy Johnson, throws 98 mile per hour fastballs. His arms look look they can extend the 60 feet from the mound to the batter's box. Thankfully, no one has coined him-- R Jo.  

Maybe Bush wants to prove that Americans are not cookie-cutter abbreviators, but culturally creative namers.  He's battling against a tide of pop-culture that refuses to let abbreviations go.  Sean Puffy Combs, used to be a puff daddy,  and now has become a p. diddy. Jennifer Lopez, his ex-lady, has the nickname J-LO, a pity, because it rhymes with some words that aren't that pretty.

Sadly, Bush has not worked his nickname magic on himself.  His nickname, dubya, is an abbreviation.  No reason to worry.  I hear the French have a few nicknames to share.

For Columbia Radio News, I'm Nancy Farghalli