nipple-biter

   In St Urbain’s Horseman, by Mordecai Richler, a wife says to her husband: ‘Nipple-biter, so there you are.’ This is almost an example of a love-name, rather than a normal vocative. A love-name is a nickname regularly used by one partner to another, but only when they are alone. It is only used as a vocative: the user of such a name does not say to a third person that Pooh-bear, or whoever, will be calling for her at six. There is no evidence in this novel, however, that ‘nipple-biter’ is regularly used by this wife to her husband. It appears to be an ad hoc vocative of the lovename type, subject to many restrictions in its use.