• degen@midwest.social
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        2 months ago

        Is this the genesis of British “humour”? Thomas, a Becket, even got the name in the time of Shakespeare.

        Waiting for somebody to eviscerate me over British history, cause all I know is Monty Python.

        • fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk
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          2 months ago

          I think you’re going to need some Blackadder to go along with your Monty Python.

          Start with the second series though, as the first series is a little weaker (the characters and style are a bit different), and might put you off.

          • Player2@lemm.ee
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            2 months ago

            Interesting, I generally prefer the first series over the others, though I haven’t seen the last one yet

        • oo1@lemmings.world
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          2 months ago

          In Wales they used to use ab/ap as a patronym, a bit like Mac in Gallic. There might have been similar in parts of whatever they called England before the anglo-saxons came, but that’s not likely to have influenced anything by the time of Becket, or the later time when the ‘a’ was added.

          I don’t think it has really survived in Wales either; the ‘a’ has often dissapeared and the p/b merged with the fathers name, like Prichard, or Bowen.

  • Crazyslinkz@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Homer Jay Simpson Or Homer J. Simpson

    If his name is S why is there a period… like an abbreviation.

  • kboy101222@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    I had a friend like this in college. His name was AJ. That’s it. Just the letters.

    Everyone in the department spent ages trying to guess what it stood for. I managed to glance his ID when we got lunch together once. His name was just AJ. There weren’t even periods marking it as an abbreviation.

    Still haven’t told anyone though

    • wax@feddit.nu
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      2 months ago

      Reminds me of the character BJ in M*A*S*H. Named after his parents, Bea and Jay

        • ArtVandelay@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Still my favorite show ever aired, and that’s in a universe where Star Trek exists. But there’s just something special about MASH

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            If you’ve never gotten the DVDs and never seen the European version without the laugh track, definitely watch it. It’s like a different (and even better) show. You start realizing that the laugh track was being put in where it shouldn’t have.

            • ArtVandelay@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              I bought the Martinis and Medicine DVD box set back in college and ripped them to my NAS many years ago. Every once in awhile I will be visiting my in-laws and catch an episode with the laugh track on television, and it’s the most awkward thing ever.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                It really is amazing where they put the laughs in sometimes. Something that is definitely supposed to be sardonic is taken to be a joke by the laugh track. Gelbart must not have been involved beyond his insistence that OR scenes never had a laugh track because, like you, I occasionally catch an American version on TV and it feels so wrong now.

                It kind of ruined shows with laugh tracks for me. I start analyzing where the laughs are being put. Shows I really like with laugh tracks are shows I just can’t watch anymore. I can do live audiences, but not laugh tracks.

                • ArtVandelay@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  It’s a great litmus test for good writing. If the show with it’s laugh track removed is awkward, it’s bad writing. If the opposite is true, it’s not a clear test, but at least it’s a good indicator.

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      Have an old friend/colleague with the last name Oh, share the same first name, so at work we would always say, John S., John D, John O type of deal, for some reaosn it would keep me wondering if we were really saying Oh or O. For him. (John isn’t really the first name, just an example)

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      S and a dot is just for when you want to abbreviate the S by adding an additional character.

  • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    My grandpa’s name was Larry. I had always assumed it was short for Lawrence. I just found out recently like 8 years after he died that it wasn’t even short for that. Apparently my illiterate great grandparents wanted to name him Larrington (which I’m 90% sure isn’t even a first name in the lexicon). Apparently my great grandmother wanted him to grow up to be Larrington the Lawyer. My guess is that was a name of a local law firm she had heard of something because it definitely sounds like a surname that you would hear on a law office advert, (i.e. call Larrington and Mitchell). Turns out they couldn’t spell Larrington and just decided to name him Larry for short. So his fucking birth certificate has a nickname on it for a name he wasn’t even born as. My mind was fucking blown hearing this.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      My dad’s name was the shortened version of a longer name and he said teachers in the prestigious British high school he went to (he went on scholarship, he wasn’t rich himself) continually insisted that his name must be the longer version no matter what he tried.

      He was also told, “children at this school go to Oxford or Cambridge” by his headmaster when he asked for a letter of recommendation when applying to Sheffield. He got into Sheffield anyway. Eventually got a PhD. Fuck that guy.

  • GrammarPolice@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    That also reminds me of this one public speaker back in 30 A.D. Jesus H Christ. Apparently the H is just an H. Who woulda thought.

  • Phoenix3875@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    J Moore, the Moore in the wildly used Boyer-Moore string search algorithm, has a first name of a single letter, J. It’s not an abbreviation.

  • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I used to work with a guy that was from China. He only had a first in a last name. He was going to college here and the college required everyone to have a middle initial as part of their login. They just used his last initial as his middle initial.

  • 11111one11111@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I’d tell people my middle name was “S” too if I were a boy middlenamed Sue. How do you do?!

  • Arn_Thor@feddit.uk
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    2 months ago

    What a coincidence. I never knew this despite my penchant for useless trivia but just yesterday at an airport I overheard some high school kids asking each other trivial pursuit questions and this was one. The next day: this post. Uncanny.