What's with the nickname?

If you're a friend of mine on facebook, you'd know that my profile picture is of a shoe. One of my beloved, personalised, NIKEiD shoes actually.

Recently a good friend asked me why the word "Pluge" was on the shoe.

It's a long story. To be fair, most of my stories are long.

My nickname, you porbably know, is Plugger. I have explained the origins of this before: I was kicking the footy with some mates in Year 11 or 12 (1993 or 1994, probably 1993), after school. I was diabolical. I knew this - I've never been good at footy, despite my passion for St Kila footy club - but had hidden it well until I kicked the footy. My friends were amused, and one of them (Toby Hambling I believe it was you) said sarcastically "You kick like Plugger."

For the uninitiated among you, Plugger is Tony Lockett, who played for St Kilda for a decade until 1994, kicking 898 goals there before breaking my heart, moving to Sydney and breaking the record for goals kicked (1357 I think). He was a great kick, so the moniker was dripping with irony. Added to that he was a bit beefy, so in that respect it suited me pretty well.

The reason it stuck was simply that I liked it.

So that explains Plugger, but what about Pluge?

The term Plugger had been well established by the time I left school, not least because I embraced it. I often introduced myself as Plugger (this also coincided with a dry period for me romantically; I can't imagine why). Not much shortening of the moniker took place, and being in an era before widespread emailing and text messaging (which, I'm sure you'll agree, has butchered the English language in the last decade or so) there was little incentive to do so.

This changed at the end of 1996; specifically at Club Capricorn post-exams. It was my first Tour of Duty up there, and like everyone else, I was drinking the beer du jour, Emu Bitter. Being students and therefore of limited budget and relatively inexperienced drinkers (and surrounded by the same), everyone was keen that our beers were not stolen.

It wouldn't be right now, but this lead to all of us to use permanent marker to write names on our beers. Three letters was about as much as could fit. Tarek's were marked Taz, Jo Bennett's were marked JoB (probably the origin of her nickname, Jobbies), Stevie K (who at that time insisted on being known not simply as a c*nt but with an emphasised definitive article "*the* c*nt", as he considered himself the very definition of one) was The, and mine Plu.

Inevitably, the name on our beers became our names for that time. Of course, with my abbreviated moniker a short U was impractical and trite, so the U was lengthened (i.e. "Ploo"). Stevie still calls me Plu actually.

Having been called Plu for a while when spending time with my mates 24-7 in Club Capricorn, when we returned to reality (or a loose approximation thereof, being uni students on summer holiday) the corrupted shortened version was again lengthened. This was rather awkward, as the double G lends itself to a preceding shortened vowel.

However, as spelling matters little in the spoken word, the G was softened and the second syllable emphasised, to make the moniker effectively "Ploo-ZHERE" (which, if I had to spell it, would be Plugere). Pioneering this variation was Jamie Osborne. Adoption of this pronunciation is not unrelated to it sounding French, and by extension, a little classy in comparison to its more vulgar Germanic-based alternative with a hard G. I had little to do with it but I assume it was an ironic association.

Of course, with a longer U in the first syllable, there was more incentive to shorten the nickname. It soon became the case that Plugere was the exception, used to add emphasis or otherwise draw attention or mock-formality. Not surprisingly the shortened version was simply Pluge.

Most pronounce this with once syllable, although some, use two syllables, as if there were an accent over the E (i.e. "Plu-ZHAY"), no doubt continuing the ironic classy implications of a Gallic pronunciation (with less formality than Plugere).

Other variations on the original Plugger are of course Pluggs, and Plucka (Peta K the main user). Some also extend Plugger or Plucka to Plugger- or Plucka-Duck, a clever but wholly unintentional extension that relates to both my surname and the hyperactive (if slightly unbalanced) anatine character who once graced our screens with Darryl and the Hey-Hey gang. Also the original is sometimes spelt Plugga, which was never my intention but I note that the pig that carried Tony Lockett's nickname at the SCG in 1994 (when he was a Saint playing the Swans) was named Plugga.

So that's the story!

Also I could only have a maximum of 6 characters on my customised shoes, so Plugger wasn't possible.

Props to Jim for raising this originally!