A deejay was announcing upcoming music by several bands this afternoon and it got me somewhat fixated on one of the little things we do in life to torture our language.
One of the bands was the Commodores, you remember them? Lionel Ritchie. “Brick House.” (She’s mighty-mighty, just lettin’ it all hang out …) “Easy (Like Sunday Morning.)” Yeah. Well, you either liked them or you didn’t. I remember listening to one of the Navy ensemble bands playing “Easy,” on a Sunday morning in fact, on the Broadway Pier in San Diego. It was kind of easy as I remember. Of course, it should have been.
Anyway, that easy as a brick house group would come out as the “Commode-o-doors” anytime the name was mentioned around my friend Warren.
I looked around a bit online to see if I could find out what that particular type of wordplay is called. I don’t know if it’s a homophone, not to be confused with a “homophobe” but that’s the kind of thing I am talking about.
When my friends and fellow college alumni met up recently in Nacogdoches, I introduced them to an old friend who is now a Realtor. We mentioned the local daily newspaper which is “The Daily Sentinel” but as long as I can remember it was nicknamed “The Daily Senile.” That’s not to say it’s a bad paper. I worked there for a few years. But that is just the way it is with certain names, especially in a college town. Newspapers especially have nicknames just about everywhere: “The Startle-Gram” is more or less a term of affection for the “Fort Worth Star-Telegram.” There is no telling how many papers there are nicknamed “The Daily Snooze.” My Realtor friend Mel, by the way, worked as a cashier at Wal-Mart back when she was going to college. This was in the 80s and I don’t know if it was a carryover from “National Lampoon’s Vacation” but Mel used to nickname her old employer “Wallyworld.” In fact, she was the first person I ever heard call the giant retailer that. I have heard it millions of times since.
College towns are particularly rich for that kind of teasing. We used to wash clothes at a store called “Shopkeeper’s.” To one of my ex-girlfriends the place was “Shoplifters.” We had a really good fast food Mexican place in town that was named “Taco USA.” Some friends pronounced it as “Tay-ko Use-uh.” Perhaps it was the Cold War days that inspired many to refer to it as “Taco Russia.”
People also have a habit of shortening proper names. That seems popular in the Urban culture, hence Jay Z and so forth. I used to stop into a Diamond Shamrock store on I-35 in Waco for a cup of coffee before I went to work in the mornings. They actually had some good coffee for a convenience store. I dubbed it the D-Rock.
There are any number of perversions, or pleasures if you will, that can come of our words especially those proper nouns. Such usage probably drives about half the population crazy and delights the other half. After all, what are words but little sounds waiting to be sounded. So if you love them, those crazy little words, set them free … Free free, set them free, free free … to paraphrase that great rock and former New Wave icon from the band Police. Yes, I’m talking about none other than — Stink.
