Have you ever wondered how "Dick" became short for "Rick"?
Probably not. But it turns out that the reason, if the following video is accurate, is interesting.
I have two questions for the historical linguists in the room. First, is there a name for this rhymification effect? Is is common? Is it confined to certain regions or cultures? Is it linked to Cockney in some way?
OK, that was a lot of questions, but really, all the same question. My second one is simpler: Where does the phrase "Swinging dick" come in? It is a Britishism for, I think, Square Mile money managers and investors. According to something I saw on TV once.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
I've been intermittently profiling people with STEM degrees and non-academic jobs since 2009, as it turns out. One of the questions in the profile asks "What’s the most important thing you learned from science?" These have been some of the most interesting responses, so I thought it might be…
Tradition. Not just a song from Fiddler on the Roof.
You know the refrain: "The Papa, the Papa! Tradition." It's a great play but it is firmly rooted in the patriarchy, as "tradition" often is.
There are many ways to define "tradition" and we can look it up somewhere and have a flameware over…
Physics is a notoriously difficult and unpopular subject, which is probably why there is a large and active Physics Education Research community within physics departments in the US. This normally generates a lot of material in the Physical Review Special Topics journal, but last week, a PER paper…
... and other matters.
The following list represents widely held beliefs, either first order beliefs (things you hear people say) or second order beliefs (things implied directly by what people say):
Evolution is very slow.
It takes millions of years for a species to evolve into another species.…
It's also used on this side of the pond, most frequently applied to the Wall Street counterparts of the City boys, but it's somewhat more general, as I understand it. I don't know which direction the expression crossed the Atlantic.
One of those terms that is difficult to get anywhere with using Google.
"Big Swinging Dick" for those who make a big impact in financial trading came into common use after Michael Lewis cited it as normal trading floor language in his book Liar's Poker, about Saloman Brothers, published in 1989.
Philip: Nice.
Also in Liar's Poker, the term "geek" is used as the opposite of a Big Swinging Dick, apparently, though the word geek goes back much earlier and with different meanings.
I wonder then how Spotted Dick (a British pudding) came about. In any case Richard Nixon was truly a dick ;)
Often, if there is a shift in the initial consonant to get the nickname, the consonant changes to a plosive. Richard > Rick > Dick, Edward > Ted. If the initial consonant is already a plosive, it does not usually change in the nickname. Thomas > Tom. J doesn't usually change, either. It's not a rule, but it is pretty general.