Lo-Lo’s Chicken & Waffles – Scottsdale, Arizona
Thousands of unique, undocumented family nicknames are born every day. However, dozens of the most common, traditional English first names used today exist entirely because of historical childhood speech limits or toddler mispronunciations. That’s because when children learn to talk, their mouths struggle with hard consonant clusters. This leads to a linguistic process called “reduplication” (repeating syllables) or consonant swapping to make words easier to say. Over centuries, these toddler-friendly versions became standard legal names. My sister Dolores acquired one such nickname. When my brother George couldn’t pronouncd “Dolores,” he began calling her Lorlie–not “Lolo” as you might expect. Even today–now that she’s 37–we all still call her Lorlie. Lolo is often a shortened petname not only for Dolores, but for Lauren and even Lorenzo. Depending on culture and context, “Lolo” may change meaning. Tagolog speakers in the Philippines use the term “Lolo” to mean “grandfather.” In Hawaiian Pidgin, Lōlō means crazy, goofy, silly, or foolish. Maybe that’s why Lorlie is happy she’s not called “Lolo.” Lo-Lo’s Chicken and Waffles” is named after the childhood nickname of its founder, Larry “Lo-Lo” White. Larry used his personal moniker in 2002 when he first started the food venture Lo-Lo’s Chicken & Waffles…