Yags, Becks, Steverino, brewski

[Steve Long]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
In a message dated 1/30/2001 7:28:35 AM, Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk writes:
<< The Manchester United footballer David Beckham is widely referred to as
"Becks"; at least, he is by journalists (maybe that qualifies as "baby
talk", though)  -  RW >>

There are other elements (as Kevin mentioned in his summary) in this practice
that might suggest that "baby talk" is too broad a description.  Consider
that it may be impulsed by the need to punctuate or close an abbreviated form
with some kind of familiar ending.

Older Americans will remember tv personality Steve Allen being called
"Steverino" in exuberant moments on his show.  During the eighthies, American
youth sometimes adopted the <-ster> ending, as portrayed in the movie "The
Amazing Ducks" ("Whoa! The Maxster comes back!")  Beyond Germanic-type
endings, there is also the occasional American practice of adding <-ski> ("a
budinski", "Reese-ski" and of course the ubiquitous "brewski" as another word
for a portion of beer.)

What all these examples have in common is a familiar morphological ending
adopted almost randomly to satisfactorily finish a truncated or single
syllable version of a regular name.

That babies might do this in generalizing endings beyond their adult-accepted
usage is to be expected.  For adults to do this undoubtedly is permissible
because of the relaxation of grammatical rules in a "playful" context.  But
what is also happening I think is there is a need to bring an abbreviated
form to some kind of closure.

"Yag" does not sound finished.  "Yags" does.

Regards,
Stephen, Steve or "Stever" Long