The Question Now: Who Carter?

By Hugh Sidey

Say this slowly: "President James E. Carter." Not bad, huh? But it drives the White House wild.

What about this one: "President J. Earl Carter Jr.," or maybe just "President J.E. Carter." Nope, says the White House, it has to be "Jimmy."

President Jimmy Carter has institutionalized his hypocorism with determination and skill, thus becoming the first President in history to get away with official use of a nickname. He is also the first to want to.

This historical breakthrough hit home last week when a handsome new book, The Presidents, by the National Park Service, was mailed around town. George, John, Thomas, Andrew, William, Millard, Abraham, Chester, Warren, Franklin and all those others march formally out of history. There are other Jameses too, but with last names like Madison, Monroe and Polk. At the end is No. 39: Jimmy.

The historians at the Park Service had been a little uncomfortable about the jarring informality, but they checked with the White House. Back came the order: Jimmy.

The Library of Congress has him down in the card file of all card files as Jimmy. The Encyclopaedia Britannica gulped hard and dedicated its latest edition to "President Jimmy Carter and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II." Washington's Social List wanted to make it James Earl, but an alarmed member of Mrs. Carter's staff called up and said, "Absolutely not." It now reads, on page 120, "Carter, The President of the United States, and Mrs. Jimmy." The British Broadcasting Corp. had a policy meeting on the Jimmy issue. In broadcasting, particularly British broadcasting, Christian names stand like the Tower of London. But the BBC retreated. Whenever possible, British newscasters refer to President Carter. But now and then they must say the nickname, and when they do, according to an American-language expert just back from London, Barnard's Professor Richard Norman, they look uncomfortable.

John Algeo, head of the English department at the University of Georgia, himself an onomastic authority, offers this theory: the Jimmy phenomenon is a bit of transplanted Southern tradition. He realizes some Yankees consider nicknames childish and undignified. There are more adult Jimmys and Billys in the South, noted Algeo, partly because there is less infant baptism than up North and nicknames are more likely to get started and stick before the ceremony intervenes. Some pollsters have suggested that the nickname helped Carter with younger voters. But as criticism of Carter has mounted, his seemingly casual, unorthodox approach to the presidency may now be working against him.

Nevertheless, Carter has been winning the name game for a decade in public life and is not about to give up. As Governor, he got a ruling from the Georgia secretary of state that he could legally use his nickname. In the presidential election, South Carolina and Maine balked at putting "Jimmy" on the ballot. Carter's lawyers successfully argued in court that "it was the actual name by which the public knows and recognizes him." Maine Superior Court Justice David Nichols wrote, "It appears that, without resorting to judicial proceedings, this nominee did change his name to Jimmy Carter. His change was in the pattern of such Presidents as were at birth named Hiram Ulysses Grant, Stephen Grover Cleveland, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, [and] John Calvin Coolidge."

NBC'S Edwin Newman, a language connoisseur, doesn't agree. Says he: "I don't like it [Jimmy], but he's entitled to use the name he wants ... I wonder if it would have helped if we had had 'Herbie Hoover' in the White House."

One institution is holding fast--Marquis Who's Who, Inc., has issued a new Who's Who in Government, and the entry on the 39th President comes under "Carter, James Earl, Jr." But on down, under "Carter, James Marshall" (a federal judge), is this line: "Carter, Jimmy--see James Earl, Jr. (Jimmy)."

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