So I have often been asked how I came to be saddled with the unusual nickname, “chwylms.” Some have opined that its dearth of vowels suggests a Welsh or Eastern European origin. (See Pete Avis’s anecdote at https://www.tdv79ers.ca/classmates/anecdotes/summer-training/sea-lord-mountbatten.) An interesting and enigmatic notion, but the real origin is rather more mundane. From my earliest brushes with bureaucracy, i.e., the school system, I have had people persistently misspell and mispronounce my surname; “it’s pronounced ‘Will-mes’” I would insist; “two syllables, rhymes with Christmas.” But my protestations all too frequently fell upon deaf ears. Most often, the speaker would assume that the “e” was silent, and say “Willms.” The more inventive would transpose the “e” and the “m” to come up with “Willems.” The lazy wouldn’t bother trying to figure it out, and just assume they were looking at a misspelling of the common English surname “Williams.” 

But the best mispronunciation was one I heard at Royal Roads, early in recruit term. Before the start of the academic year, we enjoyed some respite from the travails of rook term in the form of French language classes. My French teacher was a woman who had only very recently relocated from Paris to Victoria. (That’s Paris, the City of Light, not Paris, Ontario. Or Texas.) Her command of the English language was only marginally better than my command of French. At the start of the very first class, she began by reading our names from a nominal roll. She had little trouble with the surnames of my classmates, but when she reached the end of the list and saw mine, she paused. Applying what she knew of the arcane rules of English pronunciation, she presumed that the “e” must be silent, and moreover, by virtue of the presence of the “e”, the “i” in the first syllable must be long. And came up with “Monsieur Wylms”, which was received with much mirth by my classmates, and soon after, my cohorts in Lasalle flight embraced this novel mispronunciation as my nickname. 

The final form of my nickname was devised some weeks later, by fellow Lasalle Animal Dave “Mad Dog” Pickett. (Read about the genesis of his nickname at https://www.tdv79ers.ca/classmates/anecdotes/military-college-life/sports/wrestling/roads-memories/mad-dog-pickett.) One evening after study hours, Mad Dog was standing in my cabin, looking at my name on the hand-lettered sign on the open door. “Cee aitch willmeez” he intoned, “willmeez” being his own particular take on my surname. “It’s pronounced ‘willmes’” I countered. “Cee aitch willmes” was his next effort. Ruminating on the sound and feel of that combination for a moment, he then concatenated my two initials into what phonologists call the “voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant affricate”, i.e., “ch”, and came up with “ch-willmeez.” “My name is pronounced ‘willmes’” I repeated. “Fine, have it your way; ch-willmes.” “Ch-willmes” he repeated, and then running it all together, “chwillmes.” Suddenly, his face lit up, as with inspiration. Or gas. “Ch-wylms” he exclaimed, and then, “chwylms! That’s it, your name is ‘chwylms!’” And then off he scampered, to share his ‘innovation’ with the rest of the flight. (Note that “chwylms” is written all in lowercase, just like the name of poet e.e. cummings, and that of singer-songwriter k.d. lang.)

 The name spread like wildfire, and stuck like glue. Even the seniors used it. Colin Plows, CFL of Champlain flight, once observed, “chwylms; a woody-sounding name.” Some have modified it; for instance, Pete Avis, perhaps channelling his inner David Bowie, came up with “ch-ch-ch-chwylms” and during the various phases of our MARS training, also prepended the ch digraph to everyone else’s names, e.g., “chbooner”, “chkillaby”, “chmoens”, “chrobertshaw”, and even “chzbitnew” (which was quickly, and mercifully, shortened to “chbit”). Others have softened the “ch” to sound more like “sh”, and still others have changed the “wylms” part to rhyme with “palms” or “calms.” Over the years the nickname was adopted by many of my non-milcol colleagues, and used it exclusively. There was one young woman with whom I was acquainted who, several months after we met, was quite surprised to learn that “chwylms” was not actually my given name. It has even proven to be quite useful in this digital age; never, ever has a computer reproached me with “sorry, but that username is already taken.” 

As the old saying goes, I don’t care what they call me, so long as they don’t call me too late for dinner.