Thanks for all the great replies; the poll has been much closer than I thought. I half expected I might be on my own with this but currently honours are even.
Like Nick, I don’t like the use of xxxMOG to describe the regional MSCC centres (actually I’m not keen on “centre” either but we’ll bypass that for now). Peter’s belief that MOG stands for “Morgan Owners’ Group” is interesting … I don’t think that’s true but from now on I’ll pretend it is so that gets over one problem. I’m still not sure I like it as a magazine title though.
Which came first, Morris or Morgan? Sadly the OED doesn’t help; it only has cat and the now obsolete wench as definitions. It’s interesting that Easter cites a use of Mog by his father that predates the Morris Minor. I knew of the term for the Minor long before I heard it applied to Morgans so for me at least the prior usage applies. (By the same token I am always irritated whenever I hear someone talk of going to the “chippie” for lunch, why would you go to a carpenter for food?)
I like the idea, again from Peter, of calling the car “Monty”. OK, so it’s no shorter than “Morgan” but “driving the Monty down to Monte” certainly has the right ring to it.
As I said in the opening post, my main objection is that Mog is such a puny little word, “twee” as Nick describes it, that really doesn’t do the marque justice. I asked that someone convince me otherwise in this regard and I have to say that so far nobody has.
Jeremy Clarkson in his review of the three-wheeler said that after five minutes behind the wheel he started to believe he might be Kenneth More. Given the number of Morgan drivers I see with flying jackets I’d say he wasn’t alone, and I agree. A Morgan is for Spitfire pilots … leave the Mogs for district nurses!
Thanks all.
~iw
