Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Nicknames

"Hey, Mini!" Red-Headed Alec said to Little Girl as he walked in from work.

While i thought i had heard him correctly, i had to check.  What did you call her? i asked.

"Mini, it's my latest nickname," she said.

Latest? i asked.

"Well," Red-Headed Alec explained, "first it was Kid, then Young Jacob started calling her Dik, but I don't like that, so I started calling her Mini."

Why Mini? i asked.

"Because I'm the smallest out of all of us, except for you!" she said.

While i can understand "Kid," i noted, if you want to turn it backward, how about saying it twice?

"You mean Dik-Dik?" Red-Headed Alex asked, looking puzzled.

"Yes!" Little Girl said.  "I love the dik-dik!  It's so cute!"

"What is a dik-dik?" Red-headed Alec was looking even more confused.

"They are so cute!" Little Girl said again, as i answered, they are the smallest antelopes, only about 15 pounds and about 20 inches or so tall.

"That's what you can call me, Dik-Dik!" Little Girl said.

Now they will call her Mini, or Dik-Dik.  Better than some nicknames i could think of, i guess.  And the critters are cute, too:


A male dik-dik, with antlers.  Both pics from Wikipedia.


A female dik-dik.


Today is

Abolition Day -- Guadeloupe; Saint Martin

Annapolis Valley Apple Blossom Festival -- Windsor to Digby, Nova Scotia, Canada (lots of fun in apple blossom time; through June 1)

BookExpo America -- Jacob K. Javits Center, New York, NY, US (publishers display fall titles; through Friday)

Buttercup Day -- an internet holiday that just sounds fun

Cellophane Tape Day -- patented this date in 1930

Children's Day -- Nigeria (a school holiday)

FindleFritter's Stoat-Wheedling Event -- Fairy Calendar
 
Mother's Day -- Bolivia

National Grape Popsicle Day

National Senior Health and Fitness Day -- US (don't let age get in the way of staying healthy!)

Pop-up Toaster Day -- Charles Strite applied for his patent on the first pop-up toaster on this day in 1919

St. Augustine of Canterbury's Day (Roman Catholic Church observance; Patron of England)

St. Melangell's Day (Patron of hares)

Sun Screen Protection Day -- an annual, and unsponsored, reminder to use that SPF protection, every day!

Throw the B*st@rds Out Day -- originally directed at politicians, (and if you want to do that, too, great!), and celebrated on various days on various sites, but whomever is making your life miserable, toss them out!  or at least, toss them out of your thoughts for today.

World MS Day



Birthdays Today:

Chris Colfer, 1990
André Benjamin, 1975
Jamie Oliver, 1975
Jack McBrayer, 1973
Joseph Fiennes, 1970
Jeremy Mayfield, 1969
Todd Bridges, 1965
Pat Cash, 1965
Adam Carolla, 1964
Peri Gilpin, 1961
Richard Schiff, 1955
Bruce Weitz, 1943
Louis Gossett, Jr., 1936
Ramsey Lewis, 1935
Lee Meriwether, 1935
John Barth, 1930
Henry Kissinger, 1923
Christopher Lee, 1922
Herman Wouk, 1915
Sam Snead, 1912
Hubert H. Humphrey, 1911
Vincent Price, 1911
Dolores Hope, 1909
Rachel Louise Carson, 1907
Dashiell Hammett, 1894
Isadora Duncan, 1878
Arnold Bennett, 1867
Wild Bill Hickock, 1837
Julia Ward Howe, 1819
Amelia Bloomer, 1818
Cornelius Vanderbilt, 1794


Debuting/Premiering Today

From Russia With Love(Film). 1964
"The Three Little Pigs"(Disney animated short), 1933


Today in History:

Habeaus Corpus Act, codifying how the writ of habeaus corpus is to be used, passes in UK, 1679
Peter the Great founds St. Petersburg, 1703
In Bolivia, the Battle of La Coronilla, in which the women from Cochabamba  fight against the Spanish army, 1812
In Canada, American forces capture Fort George, 1813
Bubonic plague breaks out in San Francisco, California, 1907
The NC-4 aircraft arrives in Lisbon after completing the first transatlantic flight, 1919
The 1,046 feet (319 m) Chrysler Building in New York City, the tallest man-made structure at the time, opens to the public, 1930
Richard Gurley Drew receives a patent for his adhesive tape, later manufactured by 3M as Scotch tape, 1930
The Walt Disney Company releases the cartoon  The Three Little Pigs, with its hit song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?", 1933
In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, , 1937
Toronto's CHUM-AM, (1050 kHz) becomes Canada's first radio station to broadcast only top 40 Rock n' Roll music format, 1957
Australians vote in favor of a constitutional referendum granting the Australian government the power to make laws to benefit Indigenous Australians and to count them in the national census, 1967
In Culpeper, Virginia, actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition, 1995
Russian President Boris Yeltsin meets with Chechnyan rebels for the first time and negotiates a cease-fire, 1996
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milosevic and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity, 1999
The May 2006 Java earthquake strikes at 5:53:58 AM local time (22:53:58 UTC May 26) devastating Bantul and the city of Yogyakarta killing over 6,600, 2006
Scientists in Canada bring 400 year-old bryophyte specimens left behind by retreating glaciers during the Ice Age back to life, 2013

6 comments:

  1. I have never heard of a dik-dik. Pretty cute. Our family has all sorts of weird nicknames. My twin sister is the one with the revolving nicknames, often relating to food. Melba toast, for example.

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  2. I'd not heard of the dik-dik before. They are indeed very cute. I love it.

    Have a fabulous day. ☺

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  3. I did not know that was a baby antelope either. Interesting.

    And I am always for replacing politicians--glad someone thought to make it a day nonetheless.

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  4. oh they are so very cute!! I'd never heard of them either. Rather more original than Mini isn't it?

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