query: sarcastic antonymic nicknames

Jan Rijkhoff linjr at HUM.AU.DK
Wed Nov 25 07:41:54 UTC 2009


Dear David,

Quite a few people call their pet turtle 'Fluffy'.

Best, Jan

Jan Rijkhoff
Associate professor, Dept. of Linguistics, Aarhus University
Building 1410 (Ringgade), Bartholins Allé 16, 3.
DK - 8000 Århus C, DENMARK
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David Gil <gil at EVA.MPG.DE> writes:
>Dear all,
>
....
>
>So the purpose of this query is to try and map out the cross-linguistic distribution of Sarcastic Antonymic Nickames: a thin person called "fatso", somebody with long hair referred to as "baldy", a stupid person known as "prof", etc.  I would greatly appreciate any real live examples you might be familiar with of such Sarcastic Antonymic Nicknames: in your own native language or in languages you have worked on; among your own circle of acquaintances, or in texts you have collected, or even cases
>that are generally known (public figures, fictitious characters in novels, movies, etc.), or whatever.  I would also be really interested in claims to the effect that a certain language does *not* have Sarcastic Antonymic Nicknames, though of course such negative claims are much harder to support.
...
>
>
>Thanks,
>David Gil
>
>

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