The fish (story) that the NY Times rejects …

I mourn the absence of an apt moniker for the camel-haired candidate running for President of the United States.The male one.

The hole in the donut of public presidential debate is the lack of a nickname for Donald Trump. His first name is captive in the American psyche to a duck, and his second is more redolent of a two-card trick.

I’m surprised that no great American wit, cartoon artiste or late-night comedian-enne has yet nailed it for the person who might soon be given ‘Head of the Free World’ as a title. So I offer two suggestions, at this 11th hour for Democracy in the West.

He could be called Donald ‘The Hump’ Trump.

That nickname fits neatly with Republican logo overtones, denoting a protuberance on the back of a large, unwieldy animal. It could also suggest something hinted at in his photos, a deformity in the form of serious curvature of the spine, so that one literally cannot lie straight. There are other connotations of course: the British for example use the ‘hump’ to describe a fit of pique or depression, or an emotional slump.

But two words might over-suffice where one will do. Given the candidate’s propensity for pausing mid-sentence with a large open mouth, perfectly rounded as if suspended in time during a childhood singing lesson, his appearance lends more to a fish-based nickname. The fish that Americans call ‘Grouper’ immediately comes to mind.

Donald ‘Grouper’ Trump.

Here is a grouper. Viewed front on, with hair, you could see an uncanny resemblance.

Wikipedia says groupers “typically have a stout body and a large mouth. They are not built for long-distance, fast swimming. They can be quite large, and weights up to 100 kg (220 pounds) are not uncommon. They swallow prey rather than biting pieces off it.”

Wikipedia is most informative about the name of the fish. For example, in parts of the Philippines, it is known as pugapo, while in New Zealand the local name refers to a type of wreckfish. In the Middle East, the fish is known as hammour, a name “also used to signify a merchant of vast wealth and influence”.

In Australia, what Americans call a grouper is known as a groper.

*Nic Offenbacher is a sometimes Tasmanian writer, and fisherperson. The New York Times last week rejected this item for their OpEd column: obviously a newspaper without a sole …