2340: Nicknames for Queen Elizabeth II May 15, 2021

Queen Elizabeth II goes by many names but within her own family she is known as 'Gary' and 'Cabbage'. Both are variations on other affectionate terms, with the former coming from a childish mispronunciation when a young Prince William had a hard time saying 'granny'. It stuck and now her grandchildren call her Gary affectionately. Her late husband Prince Philip called her Cabbage as a joking overly literal translation of the French phrase 'petit chou' which effectively means 'little darling' but literally means 'little cabbage'.

2264: (Old) Blighty Feb 26, 2021

The nickname for England or Britain as 'Blighty' came as military slang, especially as used by the soldiers of the World Wars. In particular, it was used by those in the Indian army as an alteration of the Urdu bilāyatī meaning 'foreign' or often broadly just 'European', though the original Arabic meaning was not so specific and could be used to refer to any region or district. Today it is often used in England affectionately, but obviously stripped of its original meaning.