We got a little newsletter the other day from “Bobbie the Nun” that contained some interesting short articles. The date of the publication was March 27, 2019 and one little blurb mentioned that today (March 27) is “Joe” Day.
We’ve all heard the term “average Joe.” Average Joe, Joe Schmo…he’s bland, vanilla, just average. He’s faceless, but not nameless — and it’s probably not “Joe.” Every country needs a way to talk about just “some guy.” Here’s some of the names listed in the newsletter that various countries use to call that typical guy that probably has no specific qualities….
In Germany he’s Otto Normalverbraucher (Otto “normal consumer” or “middlebrow”); Denmark calls him Morten Menigmand (Morton Everyman); In Australia, he’s Fred Nurk (sounds like a normal guy to me); Russia refers to him as Vasya Pupkin (sounds like a typical schmo); In Finland, the guy’s name is Matti Meikäläien (Meikäläien means “one of us”); In both the UK and New Zealand an average Joe is still Joe — Joe Bloggs (but Joe can also be a Fred in those countries); The Italians just pick a common name — Mario Rossi and the same goes for Latin America… they typically use Juan Pérez to talk about their typical guy.
Everywhere you go, there’s more of us “average Joes” than celebrities or royalty — and there’s nothing wrong with being average. I remember a couple of Presidential elections ago, “Joe the Plummer,” an average guy, played a role in national politics. So what’s in a name? Lots… but no matter the name, he’s still “one of us.”
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