Nicknames

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 185589

Carol earlier:
> > The taunt (I refuse to call it a nickname) did not exist until
that moment. Sirius, who *never saw Severus before that incident*, 
made it up on the spot.
> 
> > Obviously, someone had to be the first to coin it, and *it
happened at that moment*. I don't understand why you're having so much
trouble understanding my point.
> 
> Geoff:
> Likewise, I don't see why you're having trouble understanding /my/
point. Whether you like it or not, the action in  OOTP which happened
later than that detailed in DH shows that the epithet has stuck and
has become a nickname. We know from "Snape's Worst Memory" that this
has happened before we see how it arose in "The Prince's Tale". How it
arose is, in my opinion, an irrelevancy.
>
Carol responds:

I though you were calling it an established "fact" at the time of the
Hogwarts Express incident. As I see it, Sirius invented it at the
first moment he encountered Severus and continued to use it to refer
to "Snape" in conversation with James and the other Marauders, and at
least once in public in SWM. Liking his "clever" invention, he
retained it into adulthood and continued to use it when he addressed
the adult Snape in OoP. (I can't recall whether he also used it in
PoA.) Are we agreed on that much, at least? 

IMO, it was not a universally used nickname (certainly the Slytherins
didn't use it and Severus didn't answer to it. He had his own
self-applied nickname, the Half-Blood Prince). The "nickname" was an
undeserved epithet applied for no reason except that Severus had
declared a wish to be Sorted into Slytherin and that it turned his
first name into something nasty sounding. *Of course*, it "existed" at
the time of SWM. I never said that it didn't. Sirius and James had
held onto it for five years at that point. But whether anyone else
used it (other than Lily getting revenge for being called a
"Mudblood") we don't know. Unless he was generally known or called by
that name, as Mad-eye was universally known and at least occasionally
addressed by his, I wouldn't call it a nickname. (He did, however,
answer to "Sev," at least when Lily used it. Possibly, his Slytherin
friends used it, too.)

I call "Snivellus" an epithet. You call it a nickname. It "existed" in
SWM but was clearly invented in "The Prince's Tale."

I'm not wuite sure what we're arguing about, really. I think we were
just focusing on different scenes and using a different term for
"Snivellus" because we regard it differently. (I find it a mark of
Sirius Black's continued immaturity, frankly.)

Carol, who should have said "the Hogwarts Express scene" instead of
"that scene" and apologizes for her vagueness