Evolution of the Manta Ray

Well, this has been a long time coming. 

For those of you who aren't my roommates, the various nicknames I have accumulated over the years may seem frankly inscrutable. It's all a little mystifying to me, too. So how did someone who resisted being Angie-fied, who managed to avoid being nicknamed for nearly seventeen years of her life (save the one adorable one from my little sister that persists to this day) get stuck with so many? 

Well, it all started one day when my BFF Tessa, of Repulsive Interactions, pictured here in her trademark Sex Pistols sweater, was having something of a case of the giggles, and uttered the words that would live in infamy: 

"If you were a man, your name would be......MANGELA!!!!"

She still calls me that, with love, to this day. Other friends took the name up and made it their own: for Maggie, it's "Mangelina Ballerina" after the fictional dancing mouse; Shannon called me "Manny" although I think she's reverted to Mangela as of late; Ania called me "Mange" which suggested, naturally, the French word mange (as in manger, "to eat"), which then became "Eat-la" as a kind of weird Franglish mish-mosh. I occasionally called her "Womania" in return.

But the nickname explosion of Cambrian proportions: that was my fault. College is supposed to be a new start, but sitting in the caf in first year, chatting with my new college friends, the topic of discussion moved to nicknames. Oh, I just had to share, didn't I? Turns out, my new friends are big fans of The Nickname. However, in the four years since then, that ancestral nickname underwent rapid evolution. Like a useless morphological feature or no-longer-necessary adaptation, weeded out by natural selection, so went "-gela." "Man" prevailed (funnily enough). I've probably forgotten some of the myriad descendants of "Manny," but the most successful, the one with the most offspring, was "Man Tan." Haley's contribution is, unsurprisingly, a "Will and Grace" reference that no one got. Apparently that didn't affect its staying power. But "Man Tan"'s legacy is the one you all know and, I hope, love today: Manta Ray. Coined by Katie in May 2007, this one has persisted likely because it is an animal. And a damn cool one, at that. It is also extremely adaptable (see Monthly Nicknames). Over the three years since its debut, it has developed into a nickname I wanted to own--not just one that was bestowed upon me without my consent. 

Eventually, "Manta Ray" proved too long, too unwieldy, and I became just Manta. Manta, your host and illustrator of More Than This Provincial Life; Manta, Los Angeles native, turned invasive species; Manta, about to graduate from McGill University; Manta, double major in Bio and English; Manta, who no longer responds to the name "Angela" without a few seconds' delay.

Manta who will be leaving Montreal in a little less than a month, and indeed exploring more than what has been, for the last four years, 

this provincial life.