*UPDATED! SEE BOTTOM*

An idle thought of mine from a few days ago is gaining a little traction on the Internets: "Twincy" as a nickname for the Twin Cities.

Taylor at Mediation:

"'Twin Cities' is really not a great descriptor of the Twin Cities. And, by God, I don’t think using 'Twincy' is all that crazy ... 'Twin Cities' at its core is a divisive label. And in Obama’s America, this is as unwelcome as it is anachronistic. 'Twincy,' on the other hand, is new and fresh, it rhymes with 'Cincy' and it would probably look cool on a Honda Civic bumper sticker."

I don't know how much he's helping the Twincy cause by pointing out the Cincy rhyme. But he's dead on with that Honda observation.

And here's Andy at South 12th:

"With all due respect to Mr. Terhark, a very intelligent guy whose work I like very much [EDIT: THANK YOU SIR], I simply cannot and will not get behind Twincy. [EDIT: I TAKE THAT BACK.] I have always preferred our airport code, the simple MSP. Or M-P-L-S, if absolutely forced into a corner.

Of course, the problem with nicknaming the so-called Twin Cities (and Chuck’s right, saying it has always been a total mouthful) is that a perfect nickname would have to cover both Minneapolis and our eternally whiny me-too conjoined twin to the east, St. Paul (AKA the Saintly City, Pig’s Eye, Hockeytown USA). “MSP” covers both. When I first moved here, I was impressed with the elegance of simply referring to Minneapolis-St. Paul as just the Cities. There’s an agreeably cornpone-cum-Tolkienian feeling to that."

All fair points. And while my heart doesn't exactly belong to Twincy just yet, I do have some rejoinders.

First: "The Cities" is rejected outright on the grounds that that's what my mom calls this place. It's what baby-boomer moms from all over the Midwest call this place, and is therefore the opposite of what we're looking for. We want a nickname that only people from the Twin Cities use. Not something that primetime local newscasters in Fergus Falls use. And it sure as hell isn't something that you'd ever see on a lamp-post banner, a la "Mill City" or "Hockeytown USA."

Similarly, no nickname should be more than three syllables, and certainly not four. That's a big reason "the Twin Cities" sucks (the other reason: the plural just futzes everything up), and that's why you'll never catch me saying "M-P-L-S," or even "MSP." If anything I'd go with "Minny," as you'll hear in many an Atmosphere song, but that leaves out St. Paul, and getting a moniker that includes everyone is the whole point. Ditto "612" and "Pig's Eye," which is clearly the best city name ever.

There are a few exceptions to the two-syllable nickname rule. According to this helpful site, Minneapolis used to be called the "City of Flour and Sawdust," which is hilarious, though not as hilarious as Milwaukee: "The City of Beer and Bricks." (Makes me want to move there.) Washington is sometimes known, rather poetically, as the "City of Magnificent Distances." (Awww.) And local rappers Big Quarters are responsible for one of my favorite multi-syllabic descriptors of the Twin Cites: "The Home of Brown Babies & White Mothers." 

Andy goes further into the history of nicknames for our fair cities, and his conclusion is right: We could be worse off. (Albion? That's the old-English name for the British Isles. WTF?) I'd argue that "The Fed" is as killer a nickname as you could have and it might supplant Twincy on my dance card, but I still hate that it refers only to Minneapolis. People are so uptight about the M/SP divide that they're afraid of umbrella terms. Minneapolis and St. Paul are very different places, but so what? So are Manhattan and Queens.

Is Twincy the answer to that problem? Is it even a problem? Probably not. But I think it's pretty funny.

Twincy out. 

UPDATE: Colin is leading the anti-Twincy charge, and he's winning. Click the link and vote. The people's verdict so far: Yucksauce. Which is cool, but c'mon, how about some alternatives?