I'm one of those people that tends to bestow pet names on people within an hour of meeting them...providing I like them and feel a connection with them. It's a habit and an intrinsic part of my character. Over the years new variations of these names seem to come tumbling out and I've built up a reasonable bank. I started to think on this today after I called Hollaback Girl "darling" at work and then realized it might be misconstrued by the uptight Christian office manager whose cubicle is situated right next to Hollaback's space. Aw, let her speculate. It keeps things lively.
My English grandma Hilda probably started me early with this habit. She called my brother and me some pretty spectacular pet names--I used to think she used them because she'd actually forgotten our real names. Here's a random sampling: pet, love, ducky, ducks, mate, little devil and her favorite, Little Maggot. It wasn't until I was older that I realized she was calling me fly larvae. It sounded so sweet the way she always said it so I couldn't have cared less what it meant.
To my original point, this event got me thinking about the pet names I trot out at random. While I utilize quite a few, I tried to isolate it to the top tier selections of those I use most often. They are:
With men: chief, dude, man, boss, goofy, pal, mistah, honey, baby, jerky (said with affection)
With women: honey, shug, doll, sweet, girl, mama, kittenfish, bunny, mook, darling, honeybabypumpkinpie, beyotch (said with affection)
With my cat Bunny: kittenfish, puss, devil, rabbit, rabitizka, Bun, satan incarnate, puss in bootsy collins
With family members: pokey, stinky, goofy, dopey, pushka, doopa, pokrakia, pooks
What are your most frequently used pet names?
Greens Gotta Be Spicy
- Chicken And Waffles
- Summit, NJ, NJ, United States
- Well, I'm Damn Fascinating.
5 comments:
I have a lot of pet names for my 22-year-old "kid." Pookie, the original pet name, turned into spooky and kooky and mookie. LOL, why do we do that? Oh, and the pet name I use for a lot of my co-workers is Moron. :-)
That's hilarious, SR!
With my cat, Stella: Stella-Bella, Estella, Stelly-Belly
With my husband: Jerky McJerkalot, Jackie (short for jackass)
The above are also said with affection. I should note that he calls me beyotch, and often adds colorful adjectives like stinky, smelly and rotten. He calls his best friend Maggot, and his kids Stinky SmellButt, and Stenchypants.
Your husbans appears to have a fascination with odors, Jen! These are terrific and I hope you won't mind, but I have to use Jerky McJerkalot. I know a few men it might easily apply to!
Have at it, C&W, although Jackie can also be useful for use on those who don't know what it stands for.
I forgot to mention that my husband recently started calling me "bickle", which is a cross between bitch and pickle and I think it is kind of cute. Better than smelly bitch, anyway.
:-)
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