User:Mricon
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"Mr. Icon" or just "Icon" is a nickname of Konstantin Ryabitsev (me!), a fine gent born in Yekaterinburg, Russia, now living in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Recently, this nickname has been retired to be only used in online resources. In meatspace, people use the real first name "Konstantin", a nickname "Kai" or its diminutive "Kylie." There is no preference, either of the 3 is good.
Nickname etymology[edit]
Back in my youth, I used to work as an interpreter for various American groups coming to Russia. Some of them found the name "Konstantin" to be too long to use in regular speech, so they shortened it to "Kon," which, of course, means a "horse" in Russian, a "convict" in colloquial English, and an "idiot" in French. However, back then I was blissfully unaware of the latter two meanings, so I allowed this nickname to stick. Then someone greeted me "Hi, Kon," the other noted that it sounded a lot like "icon," and thus the new, modified version of the nickname got born and quickly replaced the "Kon."
The "Mr." part of "Mr. Icon" got added when I was working with children at a summer camp in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina.
Pronunciation[edit]
- Russian: /kʌn.stʌn.'tʲin 'rʲæ.bʲi.ʦəf/ (Константин Рябицев)
- English: /'kɑn.stən.tiːn 'ɹæ.bit.səf/ (Kons-tun-teen Rab-bit-seff)
MGJWS[edit]
I was born with a rare but benign congenital condition called the Marcus Gunn phenomenon, which causes my left eyelid move slightly whenever I chew food. I stopped worrying about it ages ago, and I suggest you do, too. :)