View Message

Where I'm from, northern New Jersey, there is a minor local legend about a girl named Tempe (pronounced TEMP-ee) Wicke. During the Revolutionary War, she lived in a house in Jockey Hollow, near Morristown. The house is still standing. The legend is that one day she was out on her fine horse, and ran across some soldiers who made it clear that they intended to take her horse. She got away from them and galloped off, but she knew that they would follow her and take the horse, so she hid the horse inside the house. The house is now called The Tempe Wicke house.

---

I've always been surprised that such a minor occurrence spawned a legend--it's not that heroic or clever to hide a horse inside a house--but for whatever reasons, it did.

---

It's assumed that in the case of Tempe Wicke, Tempe was short for Temperance. Apparently there's no documentation of her full name being Temperance, but it seems likely.

---

So you can see that Tempe as a nickname for Temperance was in use during the eighteenth century. As a result it doesn't sound awkward at all to me. It's intuitive and it trips right off the tongue. I like Temperance,also, and if I were ever to use it, I'd happily use the nickname Tempe. I do prefer the spelling Tempe to Tempy.

---