D., A.A.S., F.R.S., etc. A college president who had
no nickname would prove himself, _ipso facto_, unfit for his post. It is
only dreadfully affected people who talk of "Tully"; the sensible all
cling to the familiar "Chick-Pea" or Cicero, by which the wart-faced
orator was distinguished. For it is not the boys only, but all American
men, who love nicknames, the idioms of nomenclature. The first thing
which is done, after a nominating convention has made its platform and
balloted for its candidates, is to discover or invent a nickname: Old
Hickory, Tippecanoe, The Little Giant, The Little Magician, The Mill-Boy
of the Slashes, Honest John, Harry of the West, Black Dan, Old Buck, Old
Rough and Ready. A "good name" is a tower of strength and many votes.
And not only with candidates for office, the spots on whose "white
garments" are eagerly sought for and labelled, but in the names of
places and classes the principle prevails, the democratic or Saxon
tongue gets the advantage. Thus, we have for our states, cities, and
ships-of-war the title of fondness which drives out the legal title of
ceremony. Are we not "Yankees" to the world, though to the diplomatists
"citizens of the United States of America"? We have a Union made up upon
the map of Maine, New Hampshire, etc.
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