As well as Vole, I have quite an ordinary name - one British people will have heard and maybe even seen, though it's a classic Irish one, simplified for an anglophone society.
Thanks to my parents, I've endured 35 years of misspellings: on meeting someone with the same name, conversation inevitably turns to the variety of distortions committed upon it.
In many ways, I'm quite resigned to people hearing my name and having a stab at it. No problem. What I fundamentally object to, however, is people who have only ever seen my name spelled correctly on screen or on paper - sent by me - and yet continually and consistently get it wrong. One individual has mailed me 350 times in the last 8 months, and has never once, not even accidentally, got it right. It smacks of laziness and contempt, of taking me for granted.
I have a new tactic. Whenever it happens in future, I'm going to respond by deliberately misspelling that person's name, however simple it may be. Let's see how long it takes them to get it right.
Childish? Perhaps. But fair.
4 comments:
Go for it Veal.
hardeharharhar, Zute.
The mangled pronunciation of my name never ceases to amuse me. Oh, no. Sorry, that's a lie. It gets really tiresome. This is why when I'm abroad, I have taken to introducing my self as "Shin", because "My name is Sinéad, pronounced 'shin-ade', rhymes with lemonade, but with a soft 'd' at the end" is too complicated and I still end up being called "Sin-ee-ath".
None of which explains why it is that people at home feel the need to call me 'Siobhán'...
Wow. I have several friends called Sinéad and most people get it right. But to hear of Irish people not being able to get it right is awful.
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