Babblers, cops and quacks: the sometimes dark – but often amusing – origins of nicknames for jobs |
These days, human resources (HR) departments want us to use official titles for jobs. But we know the social truths of a job — how well that job gets done, whether we like the person doing it — are much more complex.
Nicknames for jobs help us manage workplace performances, personalities and power beyond HR spreadsheets — and they can be a lot of fun.
Australians like to call things as they are — and it’s always been that way, as this famed army example illustrates:
Officer addressing a group of men: “Who called the cook a bastard?”
One man shouting above the others: “Who called the bastard a cook?”
Sometimes we’re very direct, but other times there’s a hidden, and often cheeky, hierarchy at work. During the first world war, one ANZAC magazine warned that army cooks ranged from the “grease-besmudged babbler” to the “natty, smart-looking chef”. Babbler is rhyming slang from “babbling brook” for “cook”. Babblers were presumably better at their job than “baitlayers”, “slushies” or “poisoners” — other terms for cooks in the bush.
But workplace nicknames are more than just pointing out someone who “wouldn’t work in an iron lung” or is more likely to “pick up a brown snake than a rake”. Nicknames are also about creating a friendlier workplace.
Humour and informality are key ingredients for workplace nicknames — Aussies have a knack for keeping things light-hearted. Think of the way “sickie” has flipped its meaning from a day’s sick leave to a day’s leave without being sick.
In the bushie era, some joked that any two men were apt to be named........