Grrl Power #1312 – Epiphonym
“…that was about the hardest thing I’ve ever done and I’ve ________________”
• sat in a meeting with the joint chiefs without rolling my eyes.
• resisted the urge to punch out a sexist MTI* during basic.
• had to learn how to put on a bra in my adolescence with wildly fluctuating super strength. Come to think of it, just pulling up my jeans was often a real potential disaster until I learned how to control my strength and speed. I can tell you I learned very quickly to keep a few changes of outfits in my locker at school.
• didn’t break one guy’s hand who grabbed my boob during drills. Oh, wait, I absolutely crushed his hand. No, Sydney! Not with my boob! How would that even… Hmm. Maybe if I squeezed his hand between my boobs then maxed out my armor…
*Military Training Instructor, basically a Drill Sergeant.
I don’t know how often first names are used in the military. I assume when there aren’t any officers around and you’re lounging in the barracks or out digging a ditch somewhere, people revert to first names for the squadmates they know. In a military hospital? I can see a doctor referring to a patient by rank, just cause it’s easier than learning a bunch of last names, or maybe it’s more formal, especially if the doctor is an officer. But I also figure there’s an even chance that when you’re convalescing in a hospital bed, someone might roll up with a gregarious bedside manner too. And probably a nurse or orderly might not be so formal, but then Peggy might not have wanted to correct a parade of hospital staff as they came through to check on her. I’m just saying, it might have been like a week or two between when she lost her leg and the first time she actually said “Peggy” outloud to anyone.
I think I’ve already done all the “Eileen/Irene/Peggy” jokes, so I’ll leave that be for now. And I know I’ve said it before, but I myself didn’t even realize naming my one-legged female character Peggy was a pre-existing joke. I think I named her Peggy because I had just learned that Peggy was shorty for Margaret, the same way Dick is short for Richard and Bud is short for Aloysius. Okay, obviously Bud is not short for Aloysius, but apparently people can just make up whatever shit they want when it comes to “X is short for Y.” Dick isn’t short for Richard, it’s a shorter and completely different name. Same thing for Peg/Margaret. Hell, I could say Riboflavin is short for Dave, even though it’s longer, because there are no rules and nothing matters.
Anyway, I thought the Margaret/Peggy thing was interesting, and I had to call her something, so here we are.
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Peggy’s missing from the who’s who sidebar.
The list changes a little bit with every reload.
Style and expressions, too…
Oh; sorry – my bad.
I see what you mean.
I’m pretty sure avalanches are only edible if you’ve got pica.
For some reason, I’m just not getting this gag. The only thing I can think of is “‘ave a lunch,” but that doesn’t seem right.
Wait, I got it: There’s a drink by that name.
I’m pretty certain that Sydney means a snow-avalanche, which is what came to my mind with the word. Rock based events are often just called rock-slides.
And now Im having One Piece, Dressrosa Arc flashbacks..
I get that you can eat locusts, but as far as natural disasters are concerned, a plague of locusts typically results in a net _decrease_ in edible biomass…
So mountains in the winter are potential giant snow cones?
Where are you gonna get that much syrup?
Also insert scene from Better Off Dead. “Look at all this snow…”
Why, from any local maple trees of corse.
The maple sap only flows in the spring, and only in the trees that are still standing.
lmao that sudden realization XD
I have to say I did not see Peggy being the one to first make the Peg leg joke with her name
lol that face in panel three. Clearly Max had to channel most of her points into defense just to be able to hold back her laughter.
I think if Peggy were far enough along in recovery that she’s able to use a prosthetic, she’s probably way past needing to cover up the cuts on her face. Just saying, if they’re still bleeding, so’s the stump.
Yeah, a stump has to be pretty well healed before it will bear weight like that, I can’t see facial cuts not already being healed at that point, too. Unless maybe they’d done some plastic surgery to reduce scarring?
Wounds to the face… not quite as easy to heal. Also those were some serious cuts to the face and probably not quite ready for her to treat with the temp where she was relocated to. Plus the doctors did 99% of the work related to the leg so the super power or magic healing got her mobile fast.
Someone is going to have to explain that “Avalanches are edible…., and vegan” joke, cause I’m just not getting it.
You can eat snow
Usually not recommended because it will lower your body temperature. Eat enough and you are increasing your risk for hypothermia.
I grew up in a part of the world where we got one or two good snows in a year. Snow ice cream was a special treat. It had milk and egg in the mixture that you poured on the snow so not very vegan.
Peggy is a nickname for Margaret? WTF?
Rhyming slang.
Margaret becomes Meg, and Meg gets the first letter changed so it’s Peg but Peg doesn’t sound so great so you make it Peggy.
Same with Dick. Richard becomes Rick, Rick gets a letter swap and becomes Dick.
People who make up nicknames have WAY too miuch time on their hands if you ask me.
How does Margaret become Meg?
Margaret becomes Marge, Meg(h)an becomes Meg
Margaret also becomes Maggie.
She has to be glad she doesn’t have any Australian friends,because they *would* have given her the additional nickname of ‘Stumpy’. I’d apologise,but black humour to the level of darkest space is kind of what’s done in Australia. We had a Prime Minister drown on his holidays and we named a swimming pool after him.
It’s also possible that the healthcare workers are just too jaded to react to the Peggy joke. They’ve probably heard every amputation joke there is, especially with them being military members/military adjacent (Are military hospitals staffed only with doctors and nurses who are members of the military?).
“Peggy” at least makes a bit of sense as it’s a rhyming-slang version of “Meggy”. “Margaret” getting shortened to “Daisy” is the real head-banger.
Because Marguerite is also the French name for the oxeye daisy. So Margaret -> Marguerite -> Daisy
The Daisy link is backwards. The English name Margaret is derived from the French word for a daisy, marguerite.
Technically, it’s a daisy chain, not a link :P
The progression from Margaret to Peggy is admittedly an odd one. Margaret became Maggie, Maggie became Moggy, Moggy became pogy then Poggy became Peggy.
I thought it was Margaret -> Marge -> Margie -> Meggie -> Peggy
People are strange everyone called my Grandmother Geet, I asked my dad and he told me her first name was Katherine and that was a shortened version of it. More confused then before I asked him how and he gave me this progression:
Katherine -> Kathy -> Katy -> Kate -> Geet. to this day I still don’t see the logic in that last step, but I have brought this up to people of my fathers generation and older and they either already knew that or the get it without issue.
as a career sailor of near two decades, I can assure you first names are often used, though formally last names or titles only. my last name was odd so I was generaly refered to as MS2 which was my rank. one other ms2 on myt ship during dessert storm was called delbert, which had nothing to do with his name.
Huh. When I was in the Air Force everyone only called me by my last name. Even off duty and off base. One guy I knew didn’t know my first name till I was being discharged.
similar, Marine. bestie didn’t know my first name for over two years. it was all nick names, unless formal,. then it was rank and/or last name…
Yep, I enlisted (Marines) in the early 1970’s. In boot, my nickname was, “the professor” because I was really good at memorizing things. I was assigned to help others remember “General Orders” etc. The smallest guy in our unit was called Mouse and he ran a lot of errands. Worked in a small office in North Carolina after training; A Captain, a Chief Warrant Officer and me. Don’t remember what they called me. Probably my rank.
Most of the puzzling short-for names can be traced back to an old fad for rhyming nicknames. For example, “Richard” typically abbreviates to “Rick”, and from there you get “Dick”; “William” becomes “Will” and thence “Bill”; “Robert” to “Rob” and then “Bob”. I don’t know offhand, but I would bet that “Margaret” shortens to “Meg” and that’s where “Peg[gy]” came from.
what about floods? are those not edible and one of the most memorable disasters of the bible?
At least maritime floods are too salty to be eaten.
Any flood that hits a city probably shouldn’t be consumed either, between the sewers backing up and any cars that dip their oil pans in the water.
The same’s true of an avalanche, though. Even in a clean environment, there’s a lot of dirt, stones and (depending on elevation) wood carried along with it. Animal waste products, random animal bits, and all sorts of human produced environmental contamination are also likely in most environments.
In Sweden we have “Bosse” which is a short for “Bo”.
A bit of classic British comedy; Pete and Dud’s “One legged Tarzan” sketch; https://youtu.be/lbnkY1tBvMU?si=fW2l5aDSIXEDCq7O
In one company I worked for, one of the VPs was named Bastian, but he went by “Buzz”. To make it worse, his last name was actually “Hello”.
Huh. In my grad school program, we had a young woman name Hye Yun and it sounded an awful lot like “Hey You”, caused all sorts of confusion.
Okay, so to replace her only tattoo (well, technically it’s still attached to her dis-attached leg) she decided to cover her arms in ink?
Bill is short for William, which is my name. But years back I had a Mexican friend who was called Memo, short for Guillermo. Languages all do weird illogical nicknames, I think. The three legitimate Karamazov brothers are Mitya, short for Dmitri; Vanka, short for Ivan; and Alyosha, short for Alexei . . .
Aren’t locusts toxic? I read that somewere. You can eat grasshoppers no problem, but when they turn into locusts something happens to their body chemistry and they become poisonus.
I grew up in the military then joined for a time myself the use of last names even away from the base is prevalent, but if you have a common last name you will discover that you can get nicknames based off it. Had a SSG Smith that most soldiers equal rank or higher called Sargent Smitty.
As a former enlisted sailor, last names were used more often than first since they are less common than first names. i.e John, Tim, David, etc. Unless you got a nickname, we had a Dim Dang, Zombie Woof, Midget, Hulk, Cockroach, etc. I can’t even remember what some of their real names were.
I can’t recall a single time that anyone referred to me by my first name in the Air Force. Everyone went by their last names or a shortened version of it (Sully for Sullivan, etc). The only exception I can think of is sometimes older men in supervisory NCO positions would refer to female subordinates by their first names, but it was pretty rare. Kind of a paternal misogyny vibe.
Even out socially amongst ourselves we used last names or nick names. I can’t think of the first name of any room mate I ever served with. With officers, anyone above Captain would usually refer to you by rank. Not full rank, either “airman” or “sergeant”. And they would be referred to by rank, as in “the Major wants to see you”. You knew which major.
You know there are rock avelanches too right, Sydney?
Richard was also Rickon and Dickon in the Middle Ages. Dickon must have been shortened (heh) to Dick at some point?
Once upon a time, a political ‘dignitary’, an Assistant Associate Deputy Assistant to the Deputy Associate Minister or somesuch, was touring my shop. One of my Cpl’s was named Smith. He went by ‘Smitty’. He wore the usual flight jacket over his coveralls with the embroidered nametag ‘Smith’, two of them, shaped like different aircraft he’d worked on, as did most of us. There was a carved wooden plaque with ‘Smith’ painted on it hanging over his workstation. He wore a red ballcap with the logo ‘Smitty’s’ from a restaurant chain. The ‘dignitary’ came up to him and asked “and what’s your name, Corporal ?” I knew what was coming and tried to motion him not to but… “Genofsky, Sir” was the immediate reply. “How do you spell that ?” I just closed my eyes…”S-M-I-T-H, Sir, the rest are silent”. The oblivious ‘dignitary’ wandered on as clueless and happy about it as when he’d entered. Twenty minutes later, I’m in the office because “he’s one of yours” and all I could say ws “the last time he said ‘Higglesworth von Biteme’ it’s an imrovement.
If someone had a nickname we used that, or last names mostly, ‘Bud’ was a generic catchall if you didn’t know the name and for some people that’s all you ever knew them by.
I did have a Sgt in the early days who had an Eastern European name almost as long as my mother’s family one was before my great-grandfather had it shortened. he cut his nametag in half and wore part over each breast pocket :)
My mother wanted to name me Richard but my father said “No son of mine is going to be a dick!” It was a very missed opportunity.
That was supposed to be a reply to Medium Dave’s comment…
Ok, just chiming in to say, the comedy in this page is gold.
Locusts: In the British navy comedy novel “Down the Hatch”, after a NATO anti submarine exercise an admiral tells a a report that the UK is no more prepared to stop submarines than a plague of locusts. As his staff rushes him away he shouts, “At least we could EAT the bloody locusts!”
Pretty sure can eat all parts of a hurricane… well, drink and inhale…
Retired Army. Had a COL in Korea (latte 90s) who had read one of those “improvement” books or somesuch, wanted everyone in the shop to use first names unless higher brass were around. Did NOT get a lot of traction with the senior NCOs…