Tags
1980s, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Jeff Spicoli, Judge Reinhold, Krauts, passive-aggressive behavior, Sean Penn, Tardsie's True-Ass Tales, unusual names
By Tardsie
Nah, not this guy. He and I are kindred spirits to a certain extent.
Not all that long ago I discovered something new about myself. It wasn’t new, exactly—I’d been doing it for a long time without realizing it, but had only recently thought to ask to ask myself why.
You may already know that I have an unusual first name. It’s ethnic, kinda freaky; you hear it more as a last name if you hear it at all. Anyway, there’s a real good chance that somebody meeting me for the second time is gonna misremember my name, and call me by a different, but only slightly more common name. Here’s the thing: it’s always the same fucking name. And this other name is fairly rare, too–chances are the only time you can remember hearing it is as the last name of a moderately successful comedic actor from the 1980s.
People are always calling me ‘Murphy’ and I fucking hate it!
When someone calls me by that name, I’ll either correct them or I won’t, obviously. But it never occurred to me that there might be a pattern to this behavior. I simply assumed that there were some situations where for whatever reason I didn’t feel bothered correcting someone.
Eventually, I was able to tease out an identifiable pattern to my behavior, and it boils down to how I feel about the person. If I like the person, I’ll correct them. If I don’t, I won’t.
Getting to the motivations behind this behavior was a little more challenging, and when I did finally plumb the dark heart of this mystery, I found it was surprisingly passive-aggressive. You see, I’d unconsciously created a system whereby I could justify my negative opinions of the person. By not correcting them I pretty much ensured that they would continue to address me by the wrong name, which irritated me and in turn gave me more reason to not like them.
You’d think that once I became aware of this frankly childish and unproductive behavior I would have taken immediate steps to curtail it. You’d be wrong, though.
It is so important to love the person you are.
Promethean Times 
Hmm, if I ever meet you in person, I’ll be scared to call you by name. Don’t want to find out if you’d correct me or not. If you didn’t, it could make for an awkward few minutes…
I’d be like, “I think it’s pretty disrespectful to call someone by a name other than their own. What the hell, Connie!”
Ha, so now the question is, would I correct YOU?…
You haven’t yet.
Hehe, good point. Okay, okay…it’s Carrie. (But there IS a Connie in my upcoming novel. I just couldn’t resist.)
Connie will obviously be a stand-in for the author.
I’d call you by your correct name, Smak and I believe I remember.
I have one of those names that people misspell on a regular basis, even when I write/sign my name, some will reply to an email and spell my name incorrectly despite the fact it’s staring them in the face from a reply email AND the aforementioned “signature.” And, people mispronounce my last name all the time.
So making a speech about how to spell my first name, last name, and the correct pronunciation is something I do on a regular basis.
But this is about you. And I applaud you for digging deep there, my friend, as to your reasons and motivations for your behavior. You could always reply to those who do abuse your name as Spicoli did to those who ticked him off. I think you know the phrase I’m referring to.
I think I do, Brigitte! And I’ll bet your name, when it’s mispronounced, is always mispronounced in the same way, too–rhymes with “Widget.” Ironically, in print, people don’t tend to make the “Judge” mistake. They often spell it wrong, but I don’t really have a problem with that, as my spelling isn’t the most common.
One thing that’s kind of interesting is that when people read my name off a list (when they don’t know me), they sometimes call me “Richard.”
Brings to mind a guy in my dorm whose last name I used to mangle all the time. Still don’t have it down – if I don’t learn it right the first time, there’s absolutely no hope for me. I think it was Griffiths and I called him Griffith. It sure irritated the hell out of him.
Hey, Tom. I know exactly what you mean. That name sometimes gives me trouble, too. Also “Griffin” vs. “Griffith.” Another name like that is “Eva.” I’d heard the name most commonly as “EE-vuh,” but then I met a Latina girl who pronounced it “AY-fuh.” Later, I dated (and am still friends with) a girl who pronounced it “Ay-vuh.” Andrea’s like that too.
People get my name wrong all the damn time. I pretty much use the same rule you do. I’ll correct you if your worth speaking to again.
It’s funny how careless people can be with names. Unless I’ve been pronouncing it wrong (stress on the first syllable, which is a synonym for “strange,”), I’d think your name would be pretty hard to screw up (unless, as I mention, I’ve just screwed it up. Then I could see how it could be quite easy to do).
Always seem to add an “ey” at the end. As in Hepburn. Oi!!
Your name is indeed unique and at first, Smak, I didn’t think it was real. Having had the honor of meeting you, I like to think I got your name right that day. Even though I have a common name, people so often call me Victoria. Often, when they get Virginia right, one of my pet peeves is when they write it and they omit the third “i”. That makes me feel like my name is an orifice.
Ha! Yes, I recall you thinking my name was phony, but once you accepted it was real, you nailed it. I wonder why people go with “Victoria?” Although that might say something good about you, as it’s also a cool name (the only non-cool “V” name I can think of off-hand is “Velma.”) Yes, leaving out that final “I” is icky. I recall I went to college with a girl named “Regina.” It was pronounced normally, but her girlfriends would pronounce it with a long I sound (much like the Canadian city of Regina is pronounced) to tease her, and I’ve never been able to think of “Regina” in quite the same way since.
I think people spell my name wrong because they can’t spell well in general. These are the types that might struggle to spell c- a-t. As for those that are incapable of getting my name right, it must bring out the lame (brain) in some.
I get a variety of pronunciations on my first name, too, but I think that’s because of all the creative spellings that have popped up over the years. And the mangling that my husband’s surname gets can be painful. If we were meet in person, I’d like to think I’d get yours right.
I’m sure you would–in your line of work you probably have to pronounce lots of obscure, out-of-use names.