query: sarcastic antonymic nicknames

Dolgor Guntsetseg dolgor.guntsetseg at LING.UNI-STUTTGART.DE
Thu Nov 26 14:23:42 UTC 2009


oh sorry, I forgot such cases. I think that is possible. But not common. 
Unfortunately, I have no instances at the moment.

BTW, we say to the children, mostly babies "How *ugly* is he/she!" or 
someting like that. But it is not negative, not sarcastic. It means "How 
sweet/cute is he/she".

Gunne


David Gil schrieb:
> Gunne,
>
> But are any of the Mongolian nicknames you are familiar with 
> antonymic?  That is to say, do any of them refer to a property that is 
> the *opposite* of the one that the person possesses?
>
> David
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> in Mongolian, such nicknames are normal. Most people have a nickname, 
>> sometimes two or more. The way to give a nickname is differently, 
>> sometimes it concerns certain character, sometimes description of 
>> body parts and so on. And most of these nicknames are humorous. Here 
>> are some examples:
>> One friend of mine has the nickname "eyebrow". He got this nickname 
>> therefore, if he is drunken (just after two or three bottles beer),  
>> he has upside-down V eyebrows.
>> Another one has the nickname "muscle". Yes, he has big muscle, but 
>> that is not the reason. He always tries to show his muscles (if there 
>> are girls!) doing it quite casually. Unlike to Eyebrow, Mucscle does 
>> not like his nickname, so people do not use this nickname before his  
>> face.
>>
>> Gunne
>
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