this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2026
97 points (96.2% liked)

Showerthoughts

43184 readers
71 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

i.e. did nick name people or did people call nick nick?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Angryhumanoid@fedinsfw.app 99 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Well not to ruin a good time in the shower but neither. In middle English an "eke name" meant "another name". Over time it became a neke name, and from there a nickname.

[–] Contramuffin@lemmy.world 31 points 1 week ago (4 children)

The n from "an" transferring to the other word is always amusing to me and what's more amusing is that it's not the only time this has happened (a napron -> an apron)

[–] Beacon@fedia.io 11 points 1 week ago

At one point i thought "enlies" was a word because of how i was hearing the phrase "therein lies the problem." I was hearing it as "there enlies the problem".

[–] jarvis@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

Works the other way too. (an otch -> a notch)

[–] too_high_for_this@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I once convinced a co-worker that the opposite was true for napkin, that they were apkins before.

Also told him pockets were pock-ettes and pants used to have giant pocks that hung outside like saddlebags.

[–] my_hat_stinks@programming.dev 7 points 1 week ago

That's surprisingly not that far off, modern pockets evolved from bags tied to belts and the word comes from "poke", meaning pouch.

[–] Hawke@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago

My nuncle has an eke name.

[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

Great question by OP, and a great answer here.

[–] inlandempire@jlai.lu 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

funny that we went full circle with "aka"

[–] Davel23@fedia.io 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

A.K.A. is an initialism for "also known as". No relation.

[–] inlandempire@jlai.lu 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

yeah i mean i just thought it was funny that people used eke name before, to mean "another name" and now we use aka to mean "also known as"

[–] Davel23@fedia.io 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] Leviathan@fedinsfw.app 2 points 1 week ago

Crazy that I got this without trying.

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I thought it was a name somebody nicked (appropriated) and placed on somebody else.

[–] xoggy@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago

another name... "an other" name