Dialoge die das Leben schrieb / Dialogues that Life wrote

Jenny: Jolyon! O, mein Guerkchen*! Mein kleines Wuerstchen!

Stephanie: Wait, did you just call our child your little sausage?

J: Yeeees, I did. I mean, Jolly is out, what else is left?**

S: You can call him Jolly. You can call him whatever you want! I am fine with you calling him Jolly, just so long as it's it doesn't stick. I just don't want it to be the name he goes by when he's older.

So, there you have it, the official verdict from the non-nicknamer in our midst: Jolly is okay, or at least better than diminutive pet names based on meat products. Jolly is clearly a pet name and will not be the only name we use for him: no danger of that, since I love the name Jolyon.

Things had been clearly getting dire in Nicknameville, though, as I am a vegetarian, seriously. Admittedly, there's a German proverb, "Alles hat ein Ende, nur die Wurst hat zwei" ("Everything has an end, only the sausage has two"). It is also a cheesy song, which I apparently heard at a carnival when I was 2 or maybe 3, and fixated upon ever since, much to the dismay of my poor mother. I sometimes sing it to Jolyon when he is cranky, in the hopes of reminding him that the crankiness also has an end.

Here's the absolutely crazy video for a 1987 top hit which incorporated the original Wurst song as a refrain:


And here is a nice, tasteful, instrumental-only video featuring lots and lots and lots of sausages and absolutely no condoning of leaving one's significant other.

Note that there are no sausages depicted even remotely as cute as our jolly Jolly Wurstchen.

*Right before "little sausage," I also called Jolyon, "my pickle," also in the diminutive form. ("Chen" is a diminutive, like Gretchen as a nickname for Grete aka Margarete.) I need remedial help with German Nicknames 101, seriously, because food products are not even that cute.

**OK, there's also Jo(e) and Jo(e)l, too! Jon, too, though it is definitely not our favorite.