Well, only two votes so far, but that'll do to be going on with ^_^
Some of you were probably thinking, 'Where'd he come up with a nick like that from?' It's not connected with his initials, and for a guy who likes fantasy stories and D&D (and whose character likes to wear black) you'd probably expect something more like 'Shadowwalker' or something, right?
Well, pull up a seat and make yourself comfortable. This might take a bit to explain...
See, it's not English, for a start. 'Stam' is a word in Hebrew (well, it can also be an abbreviation in Hebrew, but that's not the one my nick's based on).
So how did I end up with a Hebrew word as a nick, and (yes, I heard that whispered comment down the back) what does it mean?
When I first came to Israel and the place here where I study, I was slightly late to my first class (jet lag from Australia is a Really Unpleasant Experience). So, one of my fellow students notified the teacher that there was to be a new student. Of course, the teacher wanted to know what my name was.
"So what's his name?"
"Adam."
"And his surname?"
"Um..." The guy didn't know. "Adam, stam."
Now, a word of explanation for the Hebrew-limited. Stam in Hebrew means something like 'just' or 'simply'. At least in this context. So what the student has said was, in effect, 'just Adam' or 'simply adam'.
The teacher thought he was serious. When I finally arrived, he greeted me as Adam Stam.
And in the time-honored manner of nicknames, the more I tried to fix the mistake the more it stuck. So here I am, six years down the track, and to those students who had been there for that year, I'm still Adam Stam, or sometimes just plain Stam.
Posted by adam at July 10, 2003 09:23 AM