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Writer's pictureRebecca Cook

You can call me Mrs Cook!

Updated: Mar 24, 2020

Have you ever heard of 'Nominative Determinism'? It roughly means someone whose name is determined by the job that they do.


I was introduced to this term back when Mr Him Indoors was just a colleague and he made efforts to impress me with his knowledge of the English language. Over the years, he's broadened my vocabulary (roughly in line with my ever expanding derriere) with terms such as:

  • mandrolic - tedious, manual tasks like making 36 Santa penguin cupcake toppers

  • ennui - making 36 santa penguin cupcake toppers

  • malingerer - someone who claims to have a headache when there's washing up to do

  • maudlin - the result of a post-cake completion gin when you've not heard if the customer likes the cake

  • nugatory - being of no value or importance - Santa penguin cupcake toppers again

  • philistine - someone who'd rather make gumpaste dinosaurs than do the ironing in front of Top Gear

  • Svengali - Him Indoors when he used to be my boss

  • sycophantic - me when I used to bring the boss cake

But nominative determinism has to be the most ironic. Because Mr Cook can't cook. Well other than stuff-on-toast. Which clearly has its place in life some days. Anyone who knows me well knows I love my food and so he's very proud of the fact that as Mr Cook, he can in fact cook stuff-on-toast seven different ways so I can feast like a queen every night of the week. We have:


  • Beans on toast

  • Cheese on toast

  • Cheese and beans on toast

  • Poached eggs on toast

  • Pate on toast

  • Scrambled eggs on toast

  • Toast on toast (two bits on a small plate)

I am eternally grateful to him for doing this as some days I just can't be bothered to cook properly and toast on toast is just divine particularly when I'm up to my eyeballs in buttercream. The only downside is he refuses to do avocado on toast as this is apparently too pretentious.


Anyhoo, when I spotted an opening for girlfriend/fiancee/wife, I felt that it had been written in the stars and so today I officially became Mrs Cook (this published automatically at 2.30pm so you can presume it's all been completed properly if it's appeared).


According to Wikipedia in current times 'one explanation for nominative determinism is implicit egotism, which states that humans have an unconscious preference for things they associate with themselves' So my ego is sated, I'm now happily married and I have an appropriate name for my favourite job!



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