Who Is That Masked Man?

Or more precisely, what should that masked man's mask be?

Following along from my final thought in the previous post, if I were going to write under a pseudonym, what do you think that pseudonym should be? You can make a joke if you want to ("Freye Degg"), but I'd be interested in serious suggestions too.

I had one picked out, but a search revealed that it was a name that had been used for the fictional lead character in what appeared to be a very low-budget, off-color movie comedy. Although it's possible it was a softcore porn film—I didn't look at the actual movie.

I had a pseudonym once. I wanted to write for Ed Buziak's Darkroom User magazine, which he heroically put together singlehandedly in an ancient stone cottage well past the end of the paved roads in rural Wales. His office was the kitchen pantry, no less. But that was when I was Editor of Photo Techniques in the USA. When I applied for permission from my boss, the publisher, he said he didn't mind me doing a little freelance on the side, but he wanted to avoid any possibility of controversy being associated with my day job, so he gave me his blessing only if I promised not to write under my own name. I chose a pseudonym that my father liked and sometimes talked about: L.T. Gray, which sounds like el Tigre in Spanish, which is what he called me when I was very little. Well, this provoked my father, who considered the pen name to be proprietary to himself, so he proceeded to write a series of letters to Ed's magazine that claimed to be from "the real L.T. Gray." Which is a strange little curlicue, if you think about it a minute.

My father was an amateur magazine writer at one point. He would query travel, food, and wine magazines, which were plentiful in the 1970s. Then, when he got a query approved, he would plan a trip to France to research and photograph the article. The only glitch was that he would spend $3,000 on the trip and then earn $850 for the article, or some such, but he enjoyed it and it provided a rationale for more trips. My father visited France 31 times in his life, and came very close to buying a restaurant there. I believe the shortest trip was a long weekend and the longest lasted two months. My first published picture appeared in one of those magazines when I was 16—in the lead position in the article!—but my father took the credit for it.

He never actually used the "L.T. Gray" name, although he often called himself "Monsieur Post" when traveling, because, he contended, the French cannot pronounce "Johnston." By the way, want a tip for getting rid of an accent? The problem is that people learn a new language without retraining the mouth and tongue positions they grew up using. As an example, "the" (pronounced thuh) is usually pronounced in English by sticking the tongue past the front teeth. That is a tongue position that's never done in French, so the French tend to say "zee" for "the," which is what results when you attempt to say "the" without sticking the tongue past the front teeth. The solution to an accent is to gradually retrain the mouth and tongue to use the positionings of the adopted language, and you do that by having a guide say phrases slowly and with a very exaggerated accent and then have the learner repeatedly do the same. Gradually the learner will begin to adopt the unfamiliar mouth and tongue positions of the new language and the accent will begin to lessen. I have a French friend who has been living here for many decades and still has such a strong accent that he is sometimes difficult to understand. I'm dying to try to work with him on his accent, just to see if this will work, but I haven't found the courage to ask.

(Here's a strange fact that I'm noticing but hopefully you're not: One of the symptoms of my months-long tachy-brady state is that I'm misspelling far more words as I type, and the incidence of typos has shot up. Interesting, isn't it? As Jon Peterson put it when I told him this, "the brain needs a freakishly large amount of oxygen to stay happy. A wee dip can manifest in funky ways—like misspellings and typos.")

I think I just digressed from a digression. But that's me. As the hero of my early youth said, I yam what I yam and that's all what I yam.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Christer Almqvist: "I just realised, when reading your post, that my first English teacher used a very efficient method in her lessons in a small Swedish town in the 1950s. 'Each of you shall bring a small mirror tomorrow,' she said during one of the first lessons. 'We shall learn the 'TH-sound' and you need a mirror to see that your tongue is correctly placed for the proper pronunciation.' A good time was had by all students. And it worked."

John Camp: "I write under a pseudonym (John Sandford) and gave it some thought before I came up with it. (I needed a pseudonym because I was writing for two different publishers at the same time, two different thriller series, and nobody wanted to spend money advertising the other's author.) Anyway, my first impulse was John Barron, after my mother's maiden name, but there was already a thriller writer using that name. So, I went back a couple of generations, to my great-grandfather Henry Sandford. I also like that because he was a member of the Iron Brigade in the Civil War, and was one of the few survivors of the original enlistees. And I was a Civil War buff. I also wanted to keep my first name, so I would respond when people called me that, even if they knew me as John Sandford. In your case, you might consider calling yourself 'Mick,' a hypocorism of 'Michael.' As for last name, dig around among your ancestors and find one that you connect with. Even if it doesn't ring bells, it'll be yours."

Mike replies: Your comment about using the same first name reminds me of a story about Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, the eccentric mob boss of the '80s who pretended to be mentally ill as a way of evading conviction for his crimes. He had two separate families, but his wife and his mistress had the same first name so he could never make a mistake by referring to the wrong one.

Mike S.: "I once asked a French colleague with a very pronounced French accent to put on the most ridiculous over-the-top British accent he could manage. He was hesitant as he thought I might be offended, but he agreed in the end. Honestly, his accent disappeared and he sounded like a native. I could not convince him to continue with it; he thought he sounded absolutely ludicrous. Accents are weird."

Mike replies: I went to France a number of times when I was young (with my father and/or family), and I only ever encountered one Frenchman who had no accent at all, a hotel concierge in the Centre Val de Loire region. He turned out to be native-born and had never lived anywhere else, but he sounded for all the world like he was British. I couldn't detect the slightest trace of a French accent.

I'm pretty sure I could never do the same thing in French, even if I knew how to speak French! But recently I spent some time on Duolingo, and it was interesting trying to mimic the sounds of French words by ear. I realized that the "tyrant" for me is the way the words are spelled...what the letters "say" in effect. I give too much primacy to English-language pronunciations of letters and combinations of letters. For example, if you were to pronounce "quinoa" as "KWIN-oh-uh" rather than mimic the sound "keen-wah." Or say "LAY-sess-ter" rather than "lester" for Leicester. When I stated to get the hang of ignoring the spelling and simply mimicking the sounds I was hearing, my pronunciation improved. (Hard to say really, though, as I'm just sitting there alone.)

Comments

[Not THAT Ross Cameron]

Hi Mike,

I’d suggest a play on mono.

In my pre-caffeinated state, the best I could manage is Potonom.

A quick search reveals it might be a name, I’m not sure.

Will come back this evening if I think of anything during the day.

[Speed]

Before claiming your pseudonym, buy the URL associated with it.

[robert e]

John S. Chameli

[Terry Letton]

My grandfather always wanted someone to name a baby Converse Guy (Con Guy). He thought it would be hilarious. He was a child of the 19th century and told me he once ate lunch with Lizzie Borden. Of course you can’t publish this if you decide to use it as a pseudonym

[Tullio Emanuele]

Best wishes for a speedy recovery from your pacemaker implant next week. Electricians usually are interesting people, more than plumbers….(it’s an insider joke, your doctor will be able to explain).
You probably will be instructed not to raise the arm on the side of the implant, above your head for a few weeks. Unless you get a leaderless pacemaker.

And yes the brain gets a large share of the cardiac output (15-20%) compared to its weight (3 pounds or 1/60 of body weight).

[Rob Griffin]

My suggestion for a pseudonym is Booth Rushing, a combination of names in my family's history. I always thought it had a artistic ring to it. :)

[Mike Chisholm]

Kim Stonejohn. Jim Honkstone. John Notemski. Honest Jon Kim. And so on, anagrammatically..

Mike

[Luke]

Of course, now we all want to know what that off-color actor's name was.

[Roger Bradbury]

As the name Johnston derives from John's town, do you have a middle name you can append "ton" to?

That's the only sensible suggestion I can come up with. Others like D. Max, Len Scap and Red Bayer are all a bit too obvious...

[Jeff]

Mike wrote… “When I stated to get the hang of ignoring the spelling…”

That’s funny.

[robert e]

Maybe I should have explained that "John S. Chameli" is a first-last name swap + abbreviation + anagram.

I am ever amused when speakers of British English mock American accents. For some reason I find their fun-house mirror version of my own accent hilarious.

[Tim McGowan]

Alec Prime (I Like Primes).

[ASW]

I read L.T. Gray as "light gray" and immediately thought that would be a pretty cunning code name for a photographer/spy.

[Not THAT Ross Cameron]

Hi Mike, couple of other thoughts on some Nom de plumes, going with the mono theme.
- Snowy Noir
- Blanco Noir (hmm, might be taken in the clothing world)
- Blanco Black
- Raven White, Raven Whyte

[Jim Arthur]

I’ve been watching old Monty Python skits on YouTube lately so the following come to mind as possible pseudonyms. :-)

Harry “Snapper” Organs
Dinsdale Piranha
Spiny Norman

[I don't see breaks on the initial editing screen, so I thought you were suggesting "Harry 'Snapper' Organs Dinsdale Piranha Spiny Norman" as one name. Which would win, I think. --AKA Mike]

[Scott Abbey]

M. DaGeure

He always shot in greyscale.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Way back (early '70s), when I took Russian, our text used descriptions and diagrams of tongue and other mouth-part positions to try to teach us how to make the various weird noises, particularly the ones not used in English. I have no idea if I had decent pronunciation, but at least it made it much easier to do what they wanted us to do!