MEET SEÑOR TICKET

One of the many things I love about Brazil is the copious use of nicknames, which are often creative and humorous and help to forge informal bonds of friendship, even affection. A couple of years ago, during an all-too-brief interlude, I actually worked doing something other than teaching English (before my cover was blown and I was unceremoniously defrocked – more about this another time.) I had muddled my way into the Human Resources department of a large Brazilian metallurgical company, immediately receiving the sobriquet, “Chuck Norris”, due to the surly, if not exactly intimidating, photo on my company id badge.

Every large Brazilian company has to have an Internal Committee for the Prevention of Accidents, or CIPA, whose members are elected by co-workers. When the list of candidates circulated the factory it was a positive orgy of name-calling. As virtually nobody in the factory was known by the name they were christened with, the list had to include the contender’s real name and its more informal alternative, in order that the candidate be identified. Some favourites for election were “Cuecão” (Whopping Underpants), “Telemensagem” (Telemessaging?!) and “Carequinha” (Diminutive Slaphead).

My favourite ever nickname, however, belonged to a TEFL teacher, R, who went by the mysterious moniker “Ticket”. After a couple of summers running into him in various pubs I eventually discovered the origin of his abstract title. He had been teaching a closed group of Spanish teenagers and at the end of one lesson he had entered the staff room with a bemused look on his face. He had approached my friend D and confided, “Something really weird just happened in class. All the students kept calling me “Ticket”.” D hadn’t revealed the truth immediately, preferring to leave R to wander from colleague to colleague trying to find out if he was the only victim of this queer form of persecution.

Later, in the pub, the truth was revealed. D had taught the same group just before R and had made an underhand arrangement with them. They had established that, when answering R’s questions, they would append “Dickhead” onto the end of every response - given their marked Spanish accent, “Dickhead” had become “Ticket” to R’s unsuspecting ear.

As a reflection of how mud sticks, and how fast news travels in the Internet age, when R left to winter in Spain, much to everyone’s delight, a Spanish-speaking school secretary that called to offer him teaching work asked for “Señor Ticket”. At least, they think she said Ticket...