NICKNAMES
You car people are a bit odd.” “Odd? Why?”
“Because you all seem to have nicknames.”
“So, that makes us odd? Really? OK then. I always thought that was completely normal”
That was, in essence, a conversation I had a while ago with a non-car person I know. A normal person. By contrast, in our world of loud, bright, colourful, and interesting cars — whose owners could usually be described in much the same way — it seems to me that nothing could be more normal for us than having, and using, nicknames. But there’s a whole big chunk of humanity — the majority I’d guess — who wouldn’t be so uncouth as to address a person by anything other than their given name. Nor would they swear, drink, listen
