Why is this :wally called “wally” in the code to make it? Who is Wally and is he a :wally ?
Oh, and is he winking? Do people, or this Wally person, wink when they say putz?
It’s called a Wally after WallyM7, a longtime poster who passed away about three years ago. He used to call people who annoyed him a “putz.”
Zev Steinhardt
WallyM7 was a much beloved poster who died under sudden, tragic & morbid circumstances.
Why does this make me think I’m being woooooshed?
You’re not being whooshed.
Woosh-free answer: “wally” means “putz”, roughly, in British English.
It the appropriate thread to hijack :
I discovered the words “wally” and “putz” for the fist time on this board. I asked my dictionnary what it thought about these words, but it had no clue about “putz”. It knew “wally” on this other hand, and translated it with french equivalents that are rather mild as insult.
On the other hand, using the “wally/putz” smileys seems to be frowned upon outside the pit, generally speaking. So, I’m wondering : are this words harmless or utterly offensive? If you call your spouse a putz or a wally, will s/he smile or will s/he fill the divorce papers?
This may or may not be true but it is irrelevant. The Wally was indeed named after a poster on these boards who wrote with great style and passed away several years ago.
An interesting bit of synchronicity which I wondered if somebody was going to pick up on. Usually associated with “total” as in “Quit being a total wally”.
Nevertheless, it is coincidental in this case, as WallyM7 existed and was the inspiration for the smiley. IIRC, he died shortly after I joined the board.
Now, to hijack a bit, what in the heck is the etymology of “wally” in the British sense? I didn’t find it in a quick check of the AUE superlist, and a dictionary entry only gives it as derived from the name “Walter”. Why should a “Walter” be synonomous with “idjit”? Did somebody think Walter Raleigh was a :wally ?
When someone said that they might have been being whooshed, I thought I would take a look to see if this was real or not.
I was amazed at how much Wally touched so many lives and regret that I have never had the chance to know the man. I was looking at some of the memorial threads and could almost feel the pain that you the knew him must have felt in the loss.
I tried to look at some of the links that were in the threads, I.E. Wally tries cybersex, and unfortunetly they seemed to be broken.
But from what I gather, he was a good man that everyone seemed to love.
I know that I am not contributing much here but it is just something I had to say.
FYI:
The UNWOOSH link got me:
[quote]
vBulletin Message
Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms.
[/quote
Nothing to be whoosehd about. The sudden, unexpected death of WallyM7 led to the closest thing I’ve ever seen to an online wake on this board.
Wally’s classic insult was “putz!” However, he often used it as more of a term of exasperation rather than real anger – hence the eye-wink.
And yes, Wally tries cybersex was perhaps the best single post in the history of SDMB. I believe it finally disappeared forever in the second great server crash.
Or it could have been deleted because it was plagiarized.
[QUOTE=odaran]
FYI:
The UNWOOSH link got me:
[quote]
vBulletin Message
Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms.
[/quote[/QUOTE]
Strange. It’s just a link to the results of a board search for username WallyM7.
I wonder if it only works for me because I did the search? If so, I apologize.
Here’s a link to all threads started by Wally
Again, if not work, me sorry. Me just humble unfrozen caveman Doper. 
There is a fair amount of controversy over WallyM7. Among other things, no one ever met him in person, no report of his death appeared in the newspaper in the area where is was supposed to have lived and no funeral homes had a record of a memorial for him. He was said to have died in a freak industrial accident that surely would have been reported somewhere but the people of the Dope couldn’t find a trace of it. This was very possibly a faked death, a common thing in cyber space.
Whether the man really died or the man retired his character, he did entertain a lot of people while he was here.
Haj
Moved to ATMB.
-xash
General Questions Moderator
Isn’t Wally the one calling you a putz? :eek: 
I saw a lotta threads, but none with the title, “Wally Tries Cybersex”. HowEVer … ya know, there’s the saying that “nothing is ever lost once it’s on the web”? 
Courtesy of Google, [link removed by TubaDiva, copyright issues]
And people wonder why we keep telling them Google is their friend. :wally
Funny, nobody mentioned the meaning for “Putz.” I’m sure you are all familiar with this Yiddish term, however…
Once again, “Wally” plagiarized that piece. Not so cool actually.
Haj