Who am I?

January 3, 2008 2:12 AM

What does my username mean? I think it's Turkish.

It's written on the side of a building in Berlin here. I think it must mean something in Turkish. The German text underneath means wholesale textiles.

posted by creasy boy to writing & language (18 comments total)

To me that reads very much like English, and rather a lame pun on "Crazy Boy", substituting "Creasy" (full of creases) since this is a textile place.

I am in fact somewhat baffled you would think this is Turkish.
posted by splice at 3:02 AM on January 3, 2008

I concur with Splice, this seems to be nothing but a play on words.

Creasy boy, easy boy.
Creasy boy/crazy boy.
posted by the_epicurean at 3:15 AM on January 3, 2008

When I saw it, I thought of a friend, whose last name is Creasy.
posted by SpecialK at 3:42 AM on January 3, 2008

I'm curious to know why someone chose a username he or she didn't understand.
posted by Mikey-San at 4:20 AM on January 3, 2008

I should add that I live in the middle of the Turkish district in Berlin and a textile wholesaler is very likely to be Turkish. "Boy" seems to be a Turkish word, as seen here.

A Sir Edward Creasy seems connected with the history of Turkey, so it's possible that "creasy" is used as a name here.

Of course the possibility that it's mangled English has occured to me...but it strikes me as unlikely that a textiles wholesaler in Germany would come up with such a bizzare "pun". Store names like "Trendy Army Store", on the other hand, are clearly English.

I chose the name because I (male) saw it everyday and came to like it. And now I'm hoping it doesn't mean anything too awful.
posted by creasy boy at 4:29 AM on January 3, 2008

Why not ring or fax them them and ask, creasy?

They do seem to be Turkish, incidentally.
posted by Phanx at 5:29 AM on January 3, 2008

Or email Altunay Gülen, the owner of Creasy Boy. According to this site, Creasy Boy isn't only a textiles wholesaler. An alternative website to the one Phanx posted can be found here; the title of the page is 'Youngfashion'. Creasy Boy also has an eBay store called 'EL Paso Western und Biker Store', where you can see examples of the clothing they manufacture.

On the evidence, I concur with splice that it's a pun on 'crazy boy'.
posted by Ben Light at 6:06 AM on January 3, 2008

I know "boy" is a word in Turkish but I've never seen "cre*" - I'm not sure [cr] is even a valid consonant cluster in Turkish. Another vote for English - I find it very likely and I, too, am surprised you disagree. The Sir Edward Creasy connection seems absurd to me.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:12 AM on January 3, 2008

I saw "creasyboy" and assumed it meant that you were a metaphorical boy with lots of literal creases.*

*And by creases, I mean wrinkles.

I thought it was clever because the first word was a metaphorical usage, suggesting something literally true about yourself...and the second word was intended to be read literally, meaning something metaphorical about yourself (ex. boy-like=don't wanna grow up).
posted by iamkimiam at 6:57 AM on January 3, 2008

It is not Turkish. "Creasy" is definetly not a Turkish word. The word "boy" in Turkish means the size or height of an object or a person but I dont think that is how it was used here. If you ask me, this is an english word.
posted by Yeet at 7:38 AM on January 3, 2008

hunh.
I always thought your user name was crazy + greasy = creasy.
posted by j at 8:02 AM on January 3, 2008

Hmm. I was convinced it was too awkward a pun to be intentionally English, but I guess you all are right. So they sell creasy clothing? Allright, I'll try to contact the guy maybe and ask him what he was thinking. Thank you to everyone who responded.

iamkim: I'm not old...nor very young.

j: I'm not generally greasy and even on a good day I would be neurotic at most.

In retrospect I shouldn't've picked this user-name.
posted by creasy boy at 8:19 AM on January 3, 2008

FWIW, "Creasy Bear" was the nickname of the Denzel Washington character in "Man on Fire."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:35 AM on January 3, 2008

Huh. Interesting.
posted by creasy boy at 8:45 AM on January 3, 2008

FWIW, "Creasy Bear" was the nickname of the Denzel Washington character in "Man on Fire."

That, of course, based on the fact that his character's last name was actually "Creasy", as opposed to some made up nickname.
posted by qwip at 9:39 AM on January 3, 2008

I think "creasy boy" is a pretty good nick, and the Flickr photo support for seeing it all the time and deciding it sounded cool is a pretty good story for how you got it. </my vote>
posted by cgc373 at 10:52 AM on January 3, 2008

There's no way that's even remotely Turkish. It looks like one of those mangled English hprases one sees on Japanese t-shirts.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 11:12 AM on January 3, 2008

I don't think it's that far fetched that it's German "chinglish".

According to my German-English dictionary "Falten" are folds, pleats, wrinkles or creases in fabric. Seems quite likely to me that an enthusiast with a dictionary has attempted and failed to come up with a snappy English name for their textile business.

I would also grab a Turkish-English dictionary and see if any of the words for clothing or fabric or shirt happen to offer "crease" as one of the possible English meanings.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 11:36 AM on January 3, 2008