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Put an end to people mispronouncing your name

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71–80 of 147 posts

Re: Put an end to people mispronouncing your name

#71
post #7

Yeah, I think it's a clever concept, but it seems almost egotistical to say, "Look, I care enough about how you pronounce my last name to embed a link in my email sig " Many people classically mispronounced my name - it's not a big deal, I move on. If we're not going to be having many conversations where you say my last name, I'm not even going to correct you.

Maybe your last name is not 'Kiss' (which has nothing to do with the english word kiss and pronounced as /kiːʃʃ/) and people never thought your first name is some kind of sexy word and started sending you kisses at inappropriate places :D It started to get really annoying!

Re: Put an end to people mispronouncing your name

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't compare one's attachment to another living being (like a cat) to attachment to objects, or even worse, intangible symbols (like a name). A tendency to apply high value to symbols, instead of substance is a property I've noticed in less sophisticated people. They can't tell (or weren't taught to tell) apart symbol and substance, but symbols are way simpler, so they focus on the symbols. Works for them to…

>A tendency to apply high value to symbols, instead of substance is a property I've noticed in less sophisticated people. This is a wonderful sentence. I recently got married, and I wouldn't trade my wedding ring for ten times the gold value in cash, because I cherish it as a symbol of my commitment to my wife, and a symbol of our love for each other. Does that make me "less sophisticated" than somebody who looks at…

> Does that make me "less sophisticated" than somebody who looks at their wedding ring and says "Gold prices are up from when we got married; let's cash this sucker in and make some profit"?

They wouldn't buy a ring in the first place.

Re: Put an end to people mispronouncing your name

#73

My problem is not with people mispronouncing my name but modifying it to something easier for them.. No you may not call me Mario, or Martin. Mispronounce it! I don't care, just don't change it to something different!

Or you can adopt a short nickname everyone can say right, and put the entire problem behind you. There are more important things in this short life. A name is just a bunch of random sounds so when someone talks, you know they mean you.

Great idea "Paul" but the problem is not with the length of the name or difficulty, but with the fact that people I just met are trying to assign me a name I may not like.

Re: Put an end to people mispronouncing your name

#75
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or even worse: When a barista takes my name for my order, I say "Andrey." Usually they'll spell it "Andre" but whatever. Five minutes later, more often than not, they call out "Aubrey." That's reading their own handwriting. You can't explain that. :P

There's a conspiracy theory that Starbucks and other large cafe chains intentionally misspell names, so that the customer will take a picture and facebook/instagram it, as free advertising for the place. If it isn't true, it certainly should be. If I opened a coffee shop tomorrow, I would instruct all my baristas to misspell the customer names for this reason.

Better still - write flattering descriptions. "Cute guy with red shirt", "Woman in pretty dress", etc.

Re: Put an end to people mispronouncing your name

#77
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His name is probably "Marius". That's about as short as it gets as a name...

It's a great name, but it has three syllables and is uncommon enough for people to wonder if they should pronounce the "s" as he himself demonstrated. There's a reason you know William Gates and William Clinton as Bill Gates and Bill Clinton. Richard Cheney knows short name is so important, he'd rather be called "Dick" rather than his full name, "Richard". Short always wins. Mark isn't bad, by the way. Marius "Mark"…

well, first of all I already have someone named Mark in my family. What's worse he works in the same industry. Second, someone who changes my name to something totally different just to make it easier for them, screams "I don't give a flying f* who you are, and I can't be bothered to learn your name". I use to allow people calling me many names - Mario, Mark, Marcus,Martin etc. That stopped when I realized that I'm not helping anyone by doing this, but it actually is weird when you're in a meeting and everyone calls you a different name.

Re: Put an end to people mispronouncing your name

#78
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an Aussie living in the US. My name is Rob. Basically every American calls me Raaaab.

I'm British and in the US I have to deliberately say "Daaayn" so as not to be called Don.

I'm "Rob", and also British. In the US I have to deliberately say "Rahb" so as not to be called Rub, Roob or Robe.

Re: Put an end to people mispronouncing your name

#79
post #42

I don't think this will help as much as they hope it will. In my experience, people are generally incapable of pronouncing anything, even when it is said to their face. My name is Nat, which is about as simple a name as you could ask for. But quite often, I will introduce myself, "Hi, I'm Nat", and the response will be "Nice to meet you, Nate". My wife experiences it too (even from her mother!), so I don't think my p…

I'm guessing they just thought they misheard it, since "Nate" is so much more common than "Nat".

Re: Put an end to people mispronouncing your name

#80
post #21

Mispronouncing someone's name is understandable. What gets me is people misspelling my name... after they've worked with me for years... and seen my name hundreds of times...

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one. My last name is not hard to pronounce but if you haven't seen it you can pick 3/4 ways to spell it...but if I've worked with you for years and my email is firstinitial.lastname@ it drives me kind of crazy when I see people misspelling it.

My first name get misspelled more commonly than it's spelled correctly. I don't mind that so much from a personal relationships standpoint (it's not an intuitive spelling), but it's caused me real issues. The pharmacy had my name misspelled such that I couldn't fill proscriptions and it was really hard to fix. My ISP spelled it wrong when creating my account. The list goes on. And my name even has the "standard" spelling; I can't imagine what happens to people who don't.
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