Monday, April 09, 2007

 
I must register a complaint about the nickname of Daisuke "Dice-K" Matsazaki. His nickname is just a phonetic spelling of his name. so his nickname and his name are the same thing. this defies the very definition of a nickname. who allowed this? I admit the reimagining of Daisuke (already transliterated) as Dice-K is cute both for the use of "K" (baseball shorthand for "strikeout") as well as any excuse to allude to Andrew Dice Clay. But the syllogism is too much to bear. first MIMS, now this. I think this may be an even worse development in nicknaming than what happened about 5 years ago when everyone started taking the first initial of the first name and the first syllable of the last name to make the nickname (i.e. "T-Mac").

Comments:
You know I was just waiting for you to complain about this.

When I first saw this, I was insulted at the bastardization of his name into something resembling what Americans could pronounce, then realized that it was actually an accurate phonetic spelling of his name, then got annoyed that they were putting this phonetic spelling in quotes as if it was a nickname instead of putting it in parens in the "(pronounced like dice-kay)" fashion.

Still I think I would have been more annoyed if they started calling him DK instead, or even worse D-Mat. So I guess I'll live with Dice-K.

By the way, he was awesome in his opener.
 
The only reason people call it a nickname is that it sort of looks like a nickname, especially if you didn't know how his name was actually supposed to be pronounced.

I agree that its not properly considered a nickname, but I sort of like Dice-K as a shorthand. It looks cool on the page, and, as you said, the "K" is a nice symbol for a strikeout pitcher. Its not perfect, but it could be worse.
 
It's a sad commentary that these days anything besides "D-Mat" is a welcome surprise. "Dice-K" doesn't really bother me other than that I hate the Red Sox. (I think I probably hate their fans more than I do the actual Red Sox with the exception of Schilling).
 
We're everywhere. Get over it Senor Beavis. I spent a brief period last year being sad that my team was now no better than the Yankees, but screw that - I'm not going to waste my life feeling bad about the team I grew up with.
 
Post a Comment

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?