There\u2019s something about a Harry. It\u2019s a geezer name for diamond blokes \u2013 as both the prince of that name and a certain football manager have been reminding us all week. The slang is significant. Harry is not a proper name, it is an affectionate diminutive. Pet names don\u2019t just shape the way we think about people; they appear to shape the way the name-holders behave.<\/p>\n
The official name of Prince Harry, who qualified last week to pilot an Apache attack helicopter, is Prince Henry Charles Albert David of Wales. Henry James Redknapp, by contrast, was designated by his full name in the courtroom where he was acquitted of tax dodging, though football fans chanting their support at recent Spurs matches have preferred the more demotic Harry.<\/p>\n
It is a popular name, the third most so in the list of parental choices last year. The more formal Henry, from which it derives, was a lot lower down. But Harrys are vernacular sorts of chaps. \u201cThere\u2019s no way I\u2019m going to put myself through Sandhurst and then sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country,\u201d His Royal Highness opined when his regiment was sent to Iraq and he was not.\u00a0 He responded by taking the rigorous Apache combat course which will destine him for Afghanistan, in contrast to the search and rescue helicopter training of his big brother William.<\/p>\n
Harry Redknapp equally has never been one for the soft option. In several brushes with controversy over his decade as a manager he\u2019s coped throughout with a laugh and a wink. He even had some of the jury repeatedly chuckling at his laddish comments. \u201cHe\u00a0would say that, he\u2019s an Arsenal supporter,\u201d he quipped of one barrister.<\/p>\n
But even if he had been found guilty many would still have regarded him as a loveable rascal. The comedian Ken Dodd, who was similarly acquitted of tax evasion, still tells nudge-and-wink gags mocking the Inland Revenue 30 years on and his audiences love it. Nor have Prince Harry\u2019s various brushes with the law, smoking cannabis and under-age drinking, diminished public affection \u2013 not even when he went to a fancy dress party sporting a swastika armband.<\/p>\n
Harry Potter has almost respectablised the name but there is still a roguishness about Harry which Shakespeare understood when he charted the transition from prince to king in Henry V<\/em>. His hero left behind Harry and Hal as responsibility beckoned. The reverse is clear, more banally, in the transmutation of Dr Matthew Hall into Harry Hill when the GP exchanged intestinal medicine for burping comedy.<\/p>\n Harry is more affably plebeian. Think Harry Ramsden, the personification of that most working class of British staples, fish and chips. But there is also Flash Harry, an \u201can ostentatious, loudly-dressed, and usually ill-mannered man,\u201d according to the OED.\u00a0 Harrys were, in the 19th century, also the name of inferior playing cards of the second quality.<\/p>\n But everyone loved them, just as 100 years on they loved Clint Eastwood, the outcast cop and avenging angel in Don Siegel\u2019s classic vigilante film Dirty Harry<\/em>. \u201cYou don\u2019t assign him to murder cases…\u00a0 You just turn him loose,\u201d the movie posters read. Yeah.<\/p>\n With Harry Redknapp the public love his Houdini ability to get out of scrapes as well as his intuitive ability to get his players to play football beautifully. He represents the instincts and aspirations of the common man for whom sport is the only respectable vehicle for a peculiar national fervour born more from a sense of hope than expectation. The game is afoot: follow your spirit, and upon this charge cry \u201cGod for Harry, England and St. George\u201d.<\/p>\n It can, of course, end in tears. In Harry\u2019s Game<\/em>, the Eighties tv series about the British Army and the IRA, the eponymous hero gets shot dead in the end. That\u2019s the risk you take, being a Harry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There\u2019s something about a Harry. It\u2019s a geezer name for diamond blokes \u2013 as both the prince of that name and a certain football manager have been reminding us all week. The slang is significant. Harry is not a proper name, it is an affectionate diminutive. Pet names don\u2019t just shape the way we think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[717,81,53,716],"class_list":["post-4877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-society","tag-culture","tag-football","tag-iraq-war","tag-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4877"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4886,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4877\/revisions\/4886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}