(from my IRC and Blogorado shooting buddy Sal)
One of my favorite family stories is the one where my mother had a fight with the lady who was registering new kindergartners about my name. The lady insisted my mother was misspelling her own child's name.
No, really. It's Breda.
My mother had to bring back my birth certificate to the school in Mississippi to prove my name wasn't Robert.
ReplyDeleteMy Christian name is actually Bobby - I can feel your pain.
It's nice to know you can laugh about it, Brenda.
ReplyDeleteWhat? Breda? No, no, no. You've got it wrong. You obviously don't know your own child's name.
The superior attitudes of some people amaze me. Can you imagine that woman in today's world, where names have no connection to what is considered in "normal".
I can relate, though. My grandmother didn't like how my mother (her daughter) spelled my first name, so she always addressed letters to me the way she wanted it spelled.
ReplyDeleteWV: maryono - Yoko's American sister.
I had a clerk imply that I didn't know how to spell my own (half-way common enough) surname.
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say, I wasn't impressed.
Jim
w/v: tweedo. The tacky bounty hunter that got cut from Star Wars in favour of his more stylish cousin. (Alternately, a terrible idea for a bathing suit.)
Unbelieveable... well, maybe not... can you imagine that lady today? She'd be going absolutely bats**t with today's 'spellings'...
ReplyDeleteI once had a teacher in high school who asked me why I pronounced my name wrong. At least in my case, it was all in fun, having to do with the fact that my paternal grandparents had Americanized it.
ReplyDeleteI spent my kidhood introducing myself as 'Lissa, no not Melissa, take off the 'meh' part'. Cheers, Brenda! :)
ReplyDeleteI actually had a lady argue with me as to whether or not my daughter was actually my daughter.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that I was there when I had her, didn't register .....
I actually had a lady argue with me as to whether or not my daughter was actually my daughter.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that I was there when I had her, didn't register .....
That's funny, and not shocking. Same thing happened to my sister. She's E L I S E, and the kindergarten teacher 'corrected it' to Elsie on the first day of school. Mom was pissed.
ReplyDeleteYour mother could have said "It's Breda, spelled just like the Italian machinegun."
ReplyDeletehttp://world.guns.ru/machine/mg84-e.htm
My wife Tempy has been referred to as Tammy, Teri, Tracy, Tonya and most of the time the person in error was READING her name.
ReplyDeleteI love that every once in a while a commenter will call you "Brenda" despite the name "BREDA" being plastered all over the front page of this blog.
ReplyDeleteAt least your name isn't an intentional misspelling. My nephew's name is Tylor. yes, they spelled it with an O on purpose, no, I have not the foggiest idea why.
My wife deals with that all the time too.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link!
PPPP:
ReplyDeleteI dunno ... some mothers can't be trusted that much.
For example; Some poor child named L-a.
Pronounced "La dash ah". True story ( I think ).
http://claytravis.net/mailbag/labels/ladasha.html
ReplyDeleteThat dash don't be silient!
Kristopher -
ReplyDeleteTruth be told, I prefer my mother's spelling. Grandma's is more old world. Of the two, I probably see Grandma's spelling 5-10% of the time. And that may be being generous.
You wouldn't believe how many people read "Dwight" and then say "Dwayne."
ReplyDeleteI never went through anything more complicated than "With or without an 'h'?" ("Sarah" is basically foolproof...at least in my experience.)
ReplyDeleteThat is, until we start discussing my surname, which is a bizarre and extremely rare one that doesn't come up with anybody not related to me when I Google it. And I've of course never met anybody with that surname other than family members.
Apparently, though, I don't correctly pronounce my own surname. How the HELL would a random store clerk who's never even seen that word before know how to pronounce it better than a person who's HAD it for twenty-eight years?
When I was in first grade my teacher continually corrected the spelling of my name. Finally my Mom had to go have a talk with her...
ReplyDeleteAll the best,
Barent
Or that my son is using the wrong spelling of "Stewart" as his name.
ReplyDeleteSpelling is one thing; try correcting a Southerner about the correct pronunciation of "Makarov".
Everyone calls me Chip.
ReplyDeleteI dunno why, and I quit correcting them.
rickn8or: I get the same thing all the time. I just chalk it up to the fact that there are so many "correct" ways to spell Stuart, Stewart, Steward, etc. The funniest one that I have come across though was my first wife who from the time we started dating spelled it Sturat. After the divorce I think she finally just shortened it to Rat. I guess I should have seen the writing on the wall on that one before I married her, but you know... so young... so in love... so STUPID.
ReplyDeletes
It's not that often, but every once in awhile, someone will f*ck up "Smith".
ReplyDeleteReally.
T'was my future-ex-wife's maiden name, we thought it made a great middle name.
ReplyDeleteIt was made all the more complicated by my ex-f-i-l's pronunciation of the name as "Stert".
My first name of Chris always landed me on the list of girls in grade school, and my last name of Hull was always turned into Hall...
ReplyDelete