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It's right in front of your face
How do people manage to spell my name wrong in a reply to an email signed with my name? Like, when they've never communicated with me before and only know my name from reading it on my email?
Drives me bonkers. People leave the "H" off of my name quite often - I'm always convinced it's malicious due to my paranoid nature, but the rational person in me is certain they're just careless and/or thoughtless.
Though after I do quickly decide that they're not malicious, I still maintain that in addition to not being a detail person, they're also probably not all that much of a language person or a people person.
I mean, don't most of us who love language and people see a name and (at least unconsciously) think about how you just got an e-mail from Sarah-with-an-H or Sarah-without-an-H? They're two totally different names that give me different impressions and associations. They're going to give me different mental pictures of what she might look like and what kind of person she might be.
Also, I tend to think of it as a social skill to pay attention to how someone's name is spelled and pronounced and to make an effort to learn people's names to show that you care about who the person is. So I wonder a little about people who don't take the time.
3 comments:
Drives me bonkers. People leave the "H" off of my name quite often - I'm always convinced it's malicious due to my paranoid nature, but the rational person in me is certain they're just careless and/or thoughtless.
Haha, I have the exact same thought process.
Though after I do quickly decide that they're not malicious, I still maintain that in addition to not being a detail person, they're also probably not all that much of a language person or a people person.
I mean, don't most of us who love language and people see a name and (at least unconsciously) think about how you just got an e-mail from Sarah-with-an-H or Sarah-without-an-H? They're two totally different names that give me different impressions and associations. They're going to give me different mental pictures of what she might look like and what kind of person she might be.
Also, I tend to think of it as a social skill to pay attention to how someone's name is spelled and pronounced and to make an effort to learn people's names to show that you care about who the person is. So I wonder a little about people who don't take the time.
I cannot tell you how often that happens to me. Then again, my father once spelled my name wrong on a Christmas present.
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