monkiker

Use this forum to suggest Good Words for Professor Beard.
Palewriter
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monkiker

Postby Palewriter » Tue Dec 12, 2006 12:22 am

moniker (n)

A nickname or assumed name.

The etymology of this word is curious. Supposedly from Shelta, a kind of patois once found among Irish and English itinerants, which was based on the reversal of consonants in Gaelic words.

And the first Agoran who makes a "gimme shelta" comment will be awarded the PW 2006 Wall of Shame Award. :-)

-- PW
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!!! What a ride!"

skinem
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Postby skinem » Tue Dec 12, 2006 12:48 am

Come on people now, we don't want any war, children, do we?
I'll have to do some digging on Shelta---haven't heard of it before.
We do have some interesting monikers on Agora, don't we?

I'll just fade away now...

Bailey
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Postby Bailey » Tue Dec 12, 2006 2:46 am

Well, whattya know
Shel·ta (shlt)
n.
A secret jargon used by traditionally itinerant people in Great Britain and Ireland, based on systematic inversion or alteration of the initial consonants of Gaelic words. Also called Cant, Gammon.



[From Shelta Sheldr, perhaps alteration of Irish Gaelic béarla, language, English, from Old Irish bélrae, language, from bél, mouth.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved
mark shelta-is-also-a-company-in-Australia Bailey

They make shelters umbrellas and the like, but since it's pronounced shelta there anyway....

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Make the most of it...
kb









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gailr
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Postby gailr » Tue Dec 12, 2006 3:51 pm

Etymonline says:
1849, said to be originally a hobo term (but attested in London underclass from 1851), of uncertain origin; perhaps from monk (monks and nuns take new names with their vows, and early 19c. British tramps referred to themselves as "in the monkery").
Get thee to a monkery doesn't have quite the same sting, although it might fit PW's forbidden pun. Thus, give a guy a new identity and enough rope and it will become a habit?

-gailr
who thinks there might be a "stole" joke in there someplace, but isn't coming up with anything...

Bailey
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Postby Bailey » Tue Dec 12, 2006 5:58 pm

Wait! is this Moniker or Monkiker? Somehow I doubt if it has anything to do with monks here.

However,I'm NOT an RC but I thought Priests wore stoles not nuns or Monks. But perhaps they wear them to bed in their unheated cells.

mark men-in-skirts Bailey

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Make the most of it...
kb









skinem
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Postby skinem » Tue Dec 12, 2006 7:10 pm

Wait! is this Moniker or Monkiker? Somehow I doubt if it has anything to do with monks here.
I thought this thread was about mongrel monkeys...


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