Nickname + -ing: A perlocutionary evaluation

Abstract

A character in a short story titled “The Referees,” by Joseph O’Neill, proposes the form of a term for any unwanted hypocoristic nicknaming, such as Mike for Michael, simply the nickname in question verbed and suffixed with -ing, so, in this example, Miking. The unwanted nickname reflects a speaker’s verdic-tive illocutionary meaning, but, as a perlocutionary response to the presumptuous nicknaming act, nickname + -ing resists that meaning or its legitimacy. At least, it identifies the act, for which previously there was no handy term.