February 03 2011
Sound the Vuvuzelas!
Congratulations to our resident Gym Bunnies whose status has been officially recognised by the Macquarie Dictionary. Last night, in a red-carpet gala, our nation’s lexicon read out the Words of the Year in each category, from Business (presenteeism) to Sport (rail trail), from Technology (pocket-dial) to the Environment (flying cane toad). And in the Colloquial category, up popped gym bunnies, triggering rabid applause from the rowdy Brainstorm table.
Other newbies to catch the eye: sandbagging. (Nothing to do with Queensland floods, but the practice of shoring up swing voters with desperate pledges.) And the louche trio of vajazzle (Fashion), neurosexism (Psych) and screwage (apparently Eating and Drinking). Oh yes, the heir to corkage, of course. As you were.
To see the whole pantheon, including some delicious runners-up, click here. The same ‘hop’ will also you tell you that Googleganger wears the tiara for 2010, being any person who shares your name within the cyber-wilds of search engines. To my shame, David Astle is also the anti-Semitic author of The Babylonian Woe, a football hooligan fond of hurling piss bottles at rival terraces, as well as being the victim of colliding into a moose in Maryland. (Quite the birthright this handle.)
Out of interest – retaining your online anonymity if you prefer – what illustrious heights have your own Googlegangers reached? Should make for a comical Who’s Not Quite Who.
Comments
ML — 03 February at 12:17PM
I share my name with a Melbourne playwrite (Which results in my name sometimes being pinned up on hotel walls) and a member of an Adelaide Hip Hop Group (which results in my name being sprayed on the outside of toilets)
Mr X — 03 February at 01:09PM
Somehow I think looking for other Mr Xs online will lead to some fairly dubious places.
JD — 03 February at 01:20PM
My name,in a roundabout hyphenated way is shared with an educational professional in NSW who specialises in grammar and vocabulary. I can live with that.
Interestingly, my mother's family name is the same as the main Dutch dictionary - not sure if there's any connection, but I like to think there is.
DC — 03 February at 01:37PM
My namesakes all seem to be artists or scientists, except for one guy famous for murdering his foster son.
DA — 03 February at 02:24PM
In my DA guise, I'm also a Russian youth movement, Delaware, a Swedish locomotive, a river in Vietnam and...wait for it...an online artistic community. Da, comrade.
dg — 03 February at 02:28PM
My name is shared by a local architect (with a eponymous business) to where I grew up. On google a few academics have my name but mine is not a household name. My brother's name, however, played AFL and my best friend's name is big in NRL.
BTW how does someone with a Hebrew first name be antisemitic?!
dg — 03 February at 02:35PM
more 'be-come' antisemitic...
I love the irony of the word 'presenteeism'; the phenomenon pf sick people turning up to work and performing below par. I know of a health business which did loads of research into its effects yet almost expected your death certificate if you were even late for work! Gotta love the corporate world.
DC — 03 February at 02:51PM
My namesakes all seem to be artists and scientists -- except for the guy infamous for killing his foster son.
GymBunnies — 03 February at 04:24PM
WOOHOOO!!! How good's that?! My work here is now complete! Maybe I should adopt a new moniker, especially as the Macquarie doesn't seem to recognise gym bunny as a male role. Needless to say, Mrs GymBunnies is ecstatic.
GymBunnies — 03 February at 04:49PM
My googleganger is a movie title which makes me virtually ungoogleable (hmm...new name?). No, not quite Ben Hur, Annie Hall or Robin Hood but you're on the right lines. I was unemployed and therefore about to lose my Australian visa when it was released. My current employer tells the story that after a very average interview he opened the newspaper and was confronted with the headline "x x is coming!" and took it as an omen to hire me. Naturally I went to watch "my" movie (no the cinema would not grant me free entry), and was confronted with images of my gravestone in the opening sequence - quite distressing. Apologies if that was overly long and uncomical, but you did ask.
DA — 03 February at 05:01PM
You're not Malcolm X by any chance? You may well be related to Mr X.
dg — 03 February at 08:54PM
Erin Brokovich?
GymBunnies — 03 February at 10:32PM
DA and dg, you two are as funny as a clown!
And no marks if DA manages to guess as he could probably decode it from my email address.
Mauve — 04 February at 08:46AM
Congrats Gymbunnies on being ahead of the curve, and you're not Somebody Lawrence from an Arabic country are you? (only film I can recall that starts with the death of the title character)
My googleganger is one of the world's foremost authorities on tortoises. Between him and I, we've written almost a dozen books on those adorable little quadropeds.
Mauve — 04 February at 09:10AM
Warming to the task, Gymbunnies....
Is it any of Ed Wood, Norma Rae, Harvey Milk or Benjamin Button?
— 04 February at 09:32AM
Thanks Mauve, we are still grinning from ear to ear. Nope, not Lawrence, and I'm not Forrest Gump either.
GymBunnies — 04 February at 09:51AM
No, none of those Mauve (and Harvey Milk and Benjamin Button would be excluded as not strictly the title of the movie).
Mauve — 04 February at 11:04AM
I don't think Jerry Maguire or Michael Clayton died so I'm switching to Mrs Gymbunnies and Charlotte Gray
ML — 04 February at 12:39PM
Frankenstein ?
gymBunnies — 04 February at 02:26PM
Negative, Mauve & ML. The film only had a short run at the movies before going to DVD. The novel it was based on may be more well known, but it has a different name.
dg — 04 February at 04:55PM
Rosebud! Mauve, how could you forget Citizen Kane?
Mauve — 04 February at 05:08PM
Yes, good call dg, although I doubt that Gymbunnie's boss saw a promo saying Citizen Kane is coming, and that Mr Gymbunnies googles himself as that - but I've been wrong before. A grave in the opening scene is a tantalising clue though.
DA — 04 February at 05:35PM
Another example: Wetherby (A great film, with Vanessa Redgrave, and a David Hare script. First scene is the title character self-murdering.)
Though Mr/s GymB is not a Wetherby. Bark up a different tree, or stop hounding the poor eponym altogether!
Mauve — 04 February at 11:55PM
hmm, Beethoven? Scooby Doo? Sherlock...
Marley, Hooch, Cujo?...
better stop hounding
Eld Jaws Anon — 05 February at 12:51AM
As it happens, one of my googlegangers is a fairly experienced business exec in Chicago.
And, I do have a funny namesake who can't be found by Google AFAIK. A 3rd cousin by the same name who could also pass as my twin! He invited me to his 21st (I was 24 I think at the time) and people were giving me *his* 21st presents... He and I had a good giggle about the whole thing of course...
Boniface — 05 February at 08:59AM
GymBunnies: Michael Collins
Eld Jaws Anon: Jason Wandel
GymBunnies — 05 February at 12:20PM
Happy to be hounded, other than it distracting from your very own googlegangers. No cigars yet, and I'm not as old as Citizen Kane, although it was last century. My eponymous title character died accidentally while committing an heroic act, hence the friend reminiscing over my grave before the story is told.
PRS — 07 February at 01:32AM
I am blessed(?) with a very common first name and probably the most common surname. The list of 4.77 million googlegangers is a little daunting. Odds are there is at least one of anything you can think of.
If I add my less common middle name there is just one - someone Sheffield Uni lost track of in 1968.
Late last year I was an election official - there are as mere 375 Victorians with my first and last name enrolled (but only one with by birthdate).
I'll just settle for this unusual mix of anonymity and uniqueness - although I have lost count of the number of times I've met others, of both sexes, who dopplegang with me.