Does your manliness refuse to be fettered by the seams and boundaries of normal clothing? Then you need new MAN-FLAPS. Just don’t get them trapped in your bike chain.
Some things are so powerful that they should have remained forgotten.
I felt like I needed to clarify some things before we could continue any more conversations on this godforsaken website.
I’m very proud of the European Robin, I think I really captured it.
this is a very accurate birb agenda illustration
European robin is LOVE and I never really thought robins in other countries wouldn’t be like our robins, because they’re cute balls of fluff and rage and I just took a pic of one of them yesterday here, have,
also one with my coworker for scale (we were both taking pics bcs we’re cute bird lovers) (all animals, really) (actually I didn’t mean for her to be in the pic but well it happened) (our uniforms suck) (we were crouching) BABY BIRB U R NOT A BABY BUT U R MY BABY LET ME HUG YOU PLS
Wait, Robins aren’t the same everywhere?!
They should be, but they aren’t! Colonists in North America named the native birds “robins” after the ones they knew in Europe, but the birds aren’t related at all, they just both have red chests.
For further astonishment:
* the 1964 film Mary Poppins is supposedly set in London, but the fake bird that young Julie Andrews holds is actually an American robin (Turdus migratorious)
* the American robin lays spectacular turquoise blue eggs, thus the term “robin’s egg blue.” This is meaningless in Europe, where robin’s eggs are beige. A paler, greener version in the UK is called “duck egg blue”.
* the “rocking robin” and the “red red robin [who] comes bob bob bobbing along” are American robins.
* Robin from Batman was probably named after Robin Hood, although he does have a red shirt.
* the meaning of the name “Robin” is just short for “Robert.” The bird in England was historically called the Redbreast, but in England in Ye Old Days there was a trend for giving nicknames to animals. Thus, Jack Daw, Jenny Wren, and Robin Redbreast are now the names of birds in English. Now, we mostly call them “robins” and drop the “redbreast” most of the time.
* There may be a pleasing synergy with Robin Goodfellow, aka Puck and Hob Goblin, the Elvish mascot and primal spirit of England. But probably not intentional
* But basically Robin Hood, Robin Goodfellow, Robin from Batman, and American/European robins are all just named after that one guy. Robert. What a legend
england again with their fucking bananas naming conventions
Robert nickname: Robin Charles nickname: Harry Richard nickname: Dick Christopher nickname: Kit Philip nickname: Pip
the last two at least make some semblance of sense.
I think Harry is supposed to be from Henry, not Charles. Although that still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me… At least once it got to Harry you can kind of see how they got to Hal.
Robin probably started out as specifically a diminutive… hang on my dictionary thinks diminutive applied to names just means any shortened form, but
Okay nevermind my attempts at explaining: Diminutive: “A diminutive (or pet name) of a given name is a short and/or affectionate form. Often they are only used by friends and relatives.”
So, like modern English nicknames use -y as a suffix to turn a name into a kind of kiddy nickname, I think -in could function the same way around when the name Robin came around. …According to the page I linked -in can still be a dimunitive in Irish.
As for Richard, as I just now read in the same source–
Rhyming nicknames were also used. Robert might be known as Rob, Hob, Dob or Nob (although Hob, Dob and Nob have since died out, they are preserved in surnames such as Hobson, Dobb and Nobbs). Likewise Roger might be Rodge, Hodge, Nodge or Dodge and Richard might be Rick, Dick or Hick.
…Which if true indicates that Dick is somehow the sole survivor of all these rhyme-based nicknames. Huh. Well, I’m not sure whether that’s true, but I can certainly buy medieval people using obnoxious rhyming nicknames.
Hmmm… So like, did they do this with names starting with other letters? Was Henry in danger of being called Denry? If your name is David can you start calling yourself Rave?
…this started out as a post about birds…
Dick’s not the sole survivor, there are a few other rhyming nicknames that can be fun to think about!
William => Will => Bill. Bill is a nickname of William.
Robert => Rob => Bob. Bob is a nickname of Robert.
Edward => Ed => Ned. Ned is a nickname of Edward. (Can also legitimately come down from Edwin, Edgar or other “Ed” names.)
James => Jamie?? => Jimmy?? => Jim??? This could be one way that people got “Jim” from “James”!
Margaret => Maggie => Meggie => Peggy. Peggy is now a name by itself.
Eleanor => Ellie => Nellie (Can also legitimately come down from Helen, Ellen or other “Ellie” names.)
OK but gay country music would go so hard though. Ladies singing about the girl in cut offs sitting next to them in their truck, dudes singing about showing off for the farmers son, bi people singing about how the county fair is hot but it ain’t cause of the heat. 90% of country music could be fixed if we removed the heteronormativity
The other 10% of country music is fine just the way it is cause that’s the 10% that’s women singing about killing their abusive husbands.
Trixie Mattel’s new album comes out in a few days.
Theory: We all died in 2015 and are being repeatedly tortured until we figure out we’re in Hell. The demons made “The Good Place” specifically to mock us.
Verylisa 