Pluggers by Rick McKee for February 12, 2025

This couple looks younger than the regular cast.

When someone calls their spouse by their proper name, it feels like a shoe is about to drop.

Thank – You … Honey ;-)

Thems doggies is always ready.

My wife calls me P.D., because the full nickname might be misconstrued. Many, many years ago, one of her female co-workers made an off-the-cuff remark about me and confused the words pussy-cat & puppy-dog .

Yes, my love.

Having suffered with nominal aphasia my whole life [that’s where there is a kink in the pipeline so it is hard to get the name/noun from the brain to the mouth — sort of an exaggerated form of ‘tip-of-the-tongue’ syndrome], I find it much, much easier to use terms of respect or affection than to stammer around while the name trickles down the pipe. Of course, my family thinks it’s funny when I look at one and say the name of another — or of a pet. My son, Nick, loved the Indiana Jones scene: Sallah: “You are named after the dog?” Indiana Jones : “I’ve got a lot of fond memories of that dog.” because we had a dog named Nikki and he would tell people that he was named after the dog so I would be wrong less often.

Incidentally, there is no official ‘tip-of-the-tongue syndrome’. I made that up. However, there is an official tip-of-the-tongue [TOT] phenomenon aka lethologica. TOT is “a state in which one cannot quite recall a familiar word but can recall features of the word and/or words of similar form and meaning.” It is studied as part of the research focusing cognitive processes.

LOL!

I can not properly pronounce my wife’s name. A few of her friends were over and they were all asking me to say their names and different words. Most I could get. When they got to her name "Say “Olya” It is NOT OL YEAH" it is “O lee ah” I can’t get it right. My comeback was “sweetheart!”

Couples reserve real names for serious nagging.

“Ready, Rex?” Is very common.

Not there yet, although I was never good at remembering people’s names.

My wife always calls me by our last name. Not sure if that’s to constantly remind me we’re married or what. The only time she uses my first name is when my middle and last names are included, just like my mother when I was in deep trouble.