India

We basically hate Suryakumar Yadav although it isn’t really his fault

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We have really taken against Suryakumar Yadav and we feel quite bad about that but we also can’t help it.

Suryakumar Yadav is widely known as “Sky”. He said Gautam Gambhir gave him the nickname because they’re his initials.

Only they’re not his initials, are they? Because he’s not Surya Kumar Yadav. He’s Suryakumar Yadav.

So what we’ve got here is (a) a somewhat cool nickname, which we absolutely do not approve of because we absolutely do not approve of cool nicknames; and (b) a contrived nickname, which we absolutely do not approve of, especially when it’s a cool one.

Making up your own initialism and including letters from right in the middle of a word or name is probably in our Top 50 Most Hated Things In Life and that has sadly resulted in poor Suryakumar Yadav being tarred by association.

We are very, very bad at unravelling other people’s made-up initialisms and we are very, very bad at remembering them even once we’ve worked them out. Abbreviations have their place, but there are billions of the things in use these days and hardly anyone ever sees fit to explain them.

It’s particularly challenging when the term in question pisses all over the basic rules of initialisms by including a letter from the middle of a word. Why give the reader a fighting chance?

Sticking with piss, PMSL is a pretty classic example. It means ‘pissing myself laughing’. You’ll have spotted that ‘myself’ gets two letters here because ‘my’ and ‘self’ are also words. This is a common thing that happens. People mistake sequences of letters that would be a word when taken in isolation as distinct words that are actually part of the phrase they’re abbreviating.

If the term’s pretty well known, you can get away with this. A lot of abbreviations are incredibly niche though and if you don’t move in the right circles, you’ll struggle to guess them even in context.

Then there are the ones that are just invented on the spot. These are the worst. There is something incredibly arrogant and self-centred about making life harder for anyone reading your words purely because you can’t be arsed typing a few extra letters. It’s selfish.

Unsurprisingly it’s frequently these lazy typists who muddy the waters by throwing extra letters from the middles of words into their initialisms.

If you’ve ever wasted even five minutes trying to unravel a paragraph that could quite easily have been written 100 per cent clearly with 10 seconds extra effort, you will resent the whole sickening practice of making up initialisms without respecting that pretty simple rule about using initial letters.

And that’s why we hate Suryakumar Yadav. The situation is compounded by the fact he’s incredibly good at batting because this results in a degree of hero worship and worship of a thing you do not like can only ever make you dislike it more.

To reiterate, this is not Suryakumar Yadav’s fault. (Although having “Surya” on the back of his shirt isn’t helping.) The poor fella should be operating with a perfectly agreeable nickname like “Sy” and then we’d have no issue with him whatsoever.

His middle name’s Ashok so we’re probably going to call him “Say”.

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16 comments

  1. Yesterday, Daisy and I listened to an album we bought in Ethiopia many years ago, by an Ethio-jazz artiste named Girma Wolde Michael – or GWM in your terms. It is a superb album.

    Daisy wondered whether he is still going or even still alive. I had trouble answering this question, as I could only find his recordings from 20-30 years ago on-line by searching his name.

    Then I tried Girma Woldemichael and found him – he played a concert in Toronto a couple of weeks ago so I think he is still going and still alive:

    http://girmawoldemichael.com/

    Point is, he has subtly changed his name by combining two elements of it. This is not all that unusual, especially in cultures other than the straight-laced British culture.

    Surya and Kumar are both perfectly serviceable names separately and together. I think you are being a bit harsh, KC.

    My beef is that the nickname “Sky” is just a horrible nickname for an international batsman for all sorts of reasons. “Say” is not much better.

      1. Your own story only serves to highlight that the insertion of a space to subdivide a name is not some trivial difference, but in fact a very real one with potentially far-reaching ramifications.

        But if Suryakumar Yadav wants to legitimise his nickname by completely changing his name, no-one would welcome that decision more that more than us.

      2. Speaking of spaces in names (and deliberately not speaking of the first ODI) – Sam Hain (with a space) made 20 for the Lions today, but without a space he’s a Gaelic festival….

  2. Boy, Kink* is in a really bad mood today.

    *King Cricket, obviously. But you knew that already.

  3. “a) a somewhat cool nickname, which we absolutely do not approve of because we absolutely do not approve of cool nicknames; and (b) a contrived nickname, which we absolutely do not approve of, especially when it’s a cool one.”
    – Alex “King Crikcet” Bowden

    1. Also but for the faint inference there is something cool about us, even if it were only ever applied to us by accident.

      We were talking about rebranding as ‘king Cricket the other day anyway.

    1. I love that story and the video evidence that came with it – thanks APW. (I’m guessing that initialising APW is Ok, KC).

      Question for advanced students of King-Cricketology. If one of us were to write a match report about a fake IPL match,, could the author go into excruciating detail or would the prohibition of mentioning the actual cricket apply?

  8. Was this piece written in an attempt to divert attention from the, at the time of its publishing, forthcoming 10 wicket annihilation by India over England in the first One Day International? You know, a bit like the “dead cats” certain politicians have been flinging all over the place during the last few years.

    P.S. Glad to see the little girl was okay.

    P.P.S. Please also note the lack of abbreviatons and the strict adherence to proper grammar and wotnot.

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