It's not easy being a Dick

Sat, 22 Jan 2000 17:00:00 +0000

It happened one Monday in March. My nickname became an acceptable prime-time epithet. Ally McBeal referred to a man who had angered her as a "big dick." While television has long accepted the use of the actual anatomical name for the male member, it will now and forever allow the slang nickname for that august organ to be used with impunity. My heart sank that Monday night. My lifelong battle to preserve the sanctity of my nickname had been lost.

It was never revealed to me how I came to be called Dick, although I know my mother named me Richard after a long-lost love. Historians document that the transmutation of "Richard" into "Dick" was common during the first half of the 20th century. There was that most colorful of comic detectives, Mr. Tracy. Big-band singer Haymes and Olympic gold medal skater Button were revered. The movies introduced Little Rascal "Dickie" Moore and that boyish-looking actor Dick Powell. Television provided the timeless Mr. Clark, prince of America's bandstand, and two kings of comedy, Van Dyke and Martin. It also gave us Dicks York and Sargent, who played the husbands of the bewitching Samantha Stevens. There was even a short-lived TV series whose title included my nickname: "Dick and the Duchess." For more than 60 years it was good to be Dick.

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It's not easy being a Dick