6 ms·
I just heard about “Dick” being a nickname for “Richard” but as a non native English speaker i can not see the reason behind that…
by shreddit 2y ago
I just heard about “Dick” being a nickname for “Richard” but as a non native English speaker i can not see the reason behind that…
- duped 2y agoDick rhymes with Rick short for Richard
- downrightmike 2y agoAnd dick used to be short for detective, and used by private investigators like Dick Tracy. Then there is the implied Dick pun, like "Magnum" PI, where Magnum is a "Big Dick"
- nielsbot 2y agoWiktionary says this sense is shortened from “detective”, not related to the name FWIW https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dick https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dick (see English etymology #2)
- dylan604 2y agoWasn't a detective written as dic without the k? Clearly, the k was going to be used because everyone's inner 12 year old
- madcaptenor 2y agoAlso "dic" just doesn't look like an English word - compare kick, lick, sick, tick, etc. There are English words ending in -ic but they tend to be longer, Latinate ones.
- ASUfool 2y agoEpic mic drop there.
- madcaptenor 2y agoOK, that's actually a good example, but "mic" is a clipping of "microphone" and isn't pronounced the same anyway.
- dylan604 2y agosic joins the chat
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- FactolSarin 2y agoA lot of old nicknames don't really make a lot of sense at first glance. The short answer is rhyming slang, and the long answer is there simply used to be a lot less names in English that were acceptable and commonly used. So, for instance, Richard being shortened to "Rick" is pretty straightforward, but you probably knew several Richards and Ricks, and you want to call them different names. So instead of Rick, you call them by a rhyming nickname, in this case "Dick." The same is true of "Rob" being short for "Robert," but "Bob" was too. Because "Bob" rhymes with "Rob". One of the oddest in this vein is Peggy, which is short for Margaret. Because Margaret would get shortened to Meg, and then rhymed with Peg, and then somehow lengthened back again to Peggy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- AdmiralAsshat 2y agoI'd take Peggy over "Gretchen", which is similarly a nickname for Margaret ("-gret" / Greta + "-chen", the German diminutive suffix, thus meaning "little Margaret"). It might work in German, but to the English ear it sounds horrible for a little girl's name.
- cdelsolar 2y agohttps://tenor.com/view/gretchen-weiners-gretchen-lacey-chabert-mean-girls-mean-girls-movie-gif-22957905 https://tenor.com/view/gretchen-weiners-gretchen-lacey-chabe...
- dhosek 2y agoIn Slavic languages, it’s not uncommon to do doubled diminutives, so Pavel ⇢ Pavlik ⇢ Pavliček. (Or my ex-wife who didn’t like the shortness of my name “Don” but liked the Czech vocative of it, Doničku¹ which she then abbreviated to Ičku, then she hispanicized that by adding a new diminutive to it, becoming Ičquito. ⸻ 1. I’m named after my father and this is how his Czech-speaking great-grandmother who lived with his family until her death called him. On one occasion not long after we were married, the three of us were driving and I made some slightly tasteless joke and my ex-wife from the backseat said in a scolding tone, Doničku which made my dead whip his head around in surprise/shock.
- toast0 2y agoAs a Richard, I imagine, it started as Richard -> Rick. And then someone wrote the R with a real big top part and the lines at the bottom got overlooked. Got in the wrong government records like that, and soon enough it's a long explaination or you just go with it, and Bob's your uncle. But rhyming as a sibling notes is more likely (and insinuated by Bob) cockney rhyming slang is insiduious but nickname rhymes aren't quite to the same level. I'm not going with it, fyi.
- nonchalantsui 2y agoFrom what I recall reading: Richard was a common name so people used nicknames often, and this became shortened versions Rick/Rich. Eventually rhyming into Dick/Hick. Similar for Robert -> (shortened) Rob -> (rhyme) Bob. Worth noting, the dick = penis connotations happened later on, so Dick was just a nickname!
- AdmiralAsshat 2y agoRhyming nicknames are common. See also: "Bill" being a common nickname for "William" (far more common, in fact, than "Will").
- wrboyce 2y agoI know a few Williams (I am also one myself) and they all go by Will. I do know a guy whose middle name is William and he goes by Billy. I do not personally know anyone who goes by Bill. I’ve only ever been called Bill once and that was by a US Border Agent which leads me to suspect this is a regional thing (the commonality, not the validity). For clarity, I am in the UK.
- zdragnar 2y agoBill Clinton, Bill Nighy, Bill Gates, Bill Cosby, Bill Nye. Other than Nighy, maybe it's just more of an American thing?
- wrboyce 2y agoI suspect that is the case, yeah. I can think of maybe 3 other (famous) Bills from the UK but a lot more from the US. Bill Bailey, Bill Oddie, and Bill Shankly - alas I don’t know any of them personally!
- zdragnar 2y agoOh man, Bill Bailey would certainly be a treat to get to know!
- Affric 2y agoBy all accounts.
- wrboyce 2y agoAbsolutely! Nearest I have been is seeing him perform live, still a great pleasure; the man is a comic genius. (If you haven't watched it, he made a short series called "Perfect Pub Walks with Bill Bailey" which was great -- I'd highly recommend if you're a fan. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31434018/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31434018/)
- dylan604 2y agoCharles => Chuck in the same head scratching reason to me as well
- madcaptenor 2y agoI once had a coworker try to convince me that Chuck was short for William. (His full name was William Charles Lastname, and he went by Chuck.)
- dylan604 2y agoThat sounds like one of the names where "the third" rolls off naturally. I've seen a lot of "juniors" where the senior goes by the first name while junior goes by the middle name. How parents refer to their kids is an interesting little view into their world
- madcaptenor 2y agoI think he was a junior. I don't work with him any more, though, so I can't ask.
- somat 2y agoThat is my case, same name as my father(no Jr however), so the family called me by my middle name, Which you get used to, to the point where I won't recognize it if called by given name. It is a bit confusing as I have to be mindful to use the correct name when doing government tasks.
- ttyprintk 2y agoActually Chuck is fascinating: only found in America. It’s easier to pronounce in Chinese and a lot of immigrant Charles landed first in Chinatown.
- arrowsmith 2y agoIf it's not obvious: "Dick" was a nickname for Richard long, long before it became a slang word for "penis". And the newer meaning is probably why almost no Richards go by "Dick" anymore.
- irrational 2y agoMy wife had an elementary school teacher Richard Weiner who went by Dick. You can't make these things up.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoRichard Arthur Assman got more than his 15 minutes of fame due to his name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Assman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Assman
- arrowsmith 2y agoNo-one believes that I went to school with someone called Ben Deacock, but it’s true.
- Huffers2 2y agoI still laugh occasionally when I remember an army career video I saw in school which featured (among other officers) a "Major Richard Head".
- irrational 2y agoMajor Dick Head must have been praying for a promotion to Lt Colonel.
- qingcharles 2y agoMy friend knew a Michael "Don't call me Mike" Hunt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Hunt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Hunt
- SiVal 2y ago
- hennell 2y agoEnglish does a lot of shorting, rhyming nicknames. We even like to lengthen the rhyming part back out to be even more confusing. • Richard -> Rick -> Dick • William -> Will -> Bill -> Billy • Robert -> Rob -> Bob -> Bobby • Margaret -> Meg -> Peg -> Peggy • Edward -> Ed -> Ned | Ted -> Teddy A lot of common names also have just a variant which barely seems related: • Henry -> Harry • John -> Jack • James -> Jim And you'll have to Google for all the nicknames for "Elizabeth" because I can't remember them all. What we lack for creativity in names themselves, we make up for with creative nicknames because every other kid is called Elizabeth.
- DavidAdams 2y agoThere are also a lot of nicknames for Margaret (Marge, Madge, Maggie, etc), I guess because there just aren't nearly as many biblical names for women/girls so people wanted to get creative.
- kej 2y agoTo add on to what you said, the rhyming is usually in the direction of easier sounds for children to make. Kids will struggle with R a lot more than D, so you get Richard -> Rick -> Dick but not David -> Dave -> Rave, for example.
- iteria 2y agoNow all I can think is how there was a Janet in my family and none of us children could say her name, so she became Janice to us forever even as adults.
- card_zero 2y agoAnd somehow, Mary -> Polly. This is "lambdacism" apparently.
- nemomarx 2y agomary to molly to Polly? I can kinda see the molly step at least
- 2y ago
- rectang 2y agoMy initial thought was that in certain English accents, including some from the northern parts of the UK, the r is "flapped" or "tapped" similar to an r in Spanish. With a tapped r, the pronunciation of "Rick" is much closer to that of "Dick". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_English_/r/#Variations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_English_/r/#V... However, further research has turned up that rhyming nicknames have been a thing going back centuries and "Dick" is one among many. https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/how-did-dick-become-short-for-richard https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/how-did-dick-become-sh... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH1NAwwKtcg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH1NAwwKtcg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_(nickname) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_(nickname)
- washadjeffmad 2y agoPronunciations have changed with literacy and dialect. (ich) sounded like (aick) in proto-Germanic, making Richard phonetically more similar to modern Ricardo. Rhymes are also popular for nicknames, especially if you've got a village full of people with the same name, also especially if the rhyme sounds like something else. Ryke(r)/Rick/Rickon, Dyke/Deek/'Deacon'/Dick, Hyke... that's more of a surname, and perhaps more common to people who encountered the Scandinavians. There's also Richert, Ricard, and Ricart from the same root. Modern 'Richard' is softer (ich), almost like (ish), and may have been pronounced like Rishard in places before the modern compromise.
- gadders 2y agoAs well as boys names, girls names have some strange shortened forms: - Margaret -> Peggy - Anne -> Nan
- amiga386 2y ago- Margaret -> Madge, Marge, Maggie, Marjorie, Margarethe, Margherita, Greta, Gretchen, Margarita, Rita, Margot, Margo, Molly, ... - Elizabeth -> Eliza, Liza, Lisa, Liz, Lizzy, Elly, Ellie, Ell, Elle, Elsa, Liesbeth, Lizbeth, Lisbeth, Lizbet, Isabella, Isabel, Isabell, Sabella, Zabel, Bella, Beth, Betty, ...
- gadders 2y agoYes, was just listing the least intuitive ones.
- samspot 2y agoDon't feel bad, native English speakers like me can't understand it either. FWIW I think those that explain it are mostly making up reasons.