When I was at Aph around 1978, we all trooped off to some electronics convention. Since my job there was assembling prototype boards, when I was getting the badge at the ticket booth, and I was asked my job title, I said "Gnome".
The guy creating the badge was horrified. He asked me several times if I really wanted this, and I confirmed. The Aph people behind me then gave their job titles as "Wizard", "Nerd", and some other fantasy terms.
Attendees would read our badges and exclaim they should have done the same thing.
Thereafter, this became commonplace.
I don't know if I started this trend, but it seems like I was the first. I wish I'd kept the badge, but who knew?
There has to be some weighing for if/how they are actually used in the wild. For example, metamates is objectively horrible, but I'm not sure anyone actually uses it. Xoogler, noogler objectively are neutral, but end up sounding super douchy because of how often they get thrown around by actual google people
In a theoretical world where "domosapien" was related to a company named after "Mr. Roboto" -- say, a company called Kilroy -- I cold really dig being called that.
While we’re talking about government versions. The NASA astronaut recruits have arguably one of the worst. Their official title is “Astronaut Candidate” but as nothing so long can go un-abbreviated at NASA, they are simply referred to as (even in many official documents) as ASCANs, pronounced “Ass Can”.
During peacetime, the US Coast Guard is now part of the Department of Homeland Security. (It was part of the Department of Transportation fro 1967 - 2003.)
Funny story about New Relic: The name is an anagram of the CEO's, "Lew Cirne". Not sure if that's widely known, but he just used it as a placeholder while working as an entrepreneur in residence at a VC fund for his next project, and it stuck.
Sorry, cannot edit original comment. As an ESL I fell into a classic “false friends” trap. I meant “paradox”, not a “controversy” (that in English usually means something akin to “bad rep”).
It was "facebookers" in spoken talk, "fbers" written. Former employees are generally referred to as "ex-fb". Many private discussion groups with that in the name.
I prefer my sci-fi aged and esoteric, like a fine wine. (Haven't watched most of the Marvel movies after it became sequel after sequel six months apart.)
"Jaffa! Kree!" is timeless (though with no connections to MRVL).
They're all terrible. You're a human being with dignity and a name, not a farm animal. Any employer who tries to name you as the latter should be politely asked to stop.
I think they're a lot more natural than you make it sound. I mean we have denonyms from placenames. Some of them are fairly rote (newyorker, londoner, dubliner), some take some imagination (okie, mackem, geordie).
The guy creating the badge was horrified. He asked me several times if I really wanted this, and I confirmed. The Aph people behind me then gave their job titles as "Wizard", "Nerd", and some other fantasy terms.
Attendees would read our badges and exclaim they should have done the same thing.
Thereafter, this became commonplace.
I don't know if I started this trend, but it seems like I was the first. I wish I'd kept the badge, but who knew?
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