I give up.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Just this morning, I realized that without any intention or realization on my part, I’ve utterly given up one of the greatest battles of my life.

I know what you’re thinking: ending world hunger? Making peace in the Middle East? Finally learning how to cook?

Nothing that prolific, I assure you. The battle I have slowly given up on is a great one,* the battle to get people to properly pronounce my name.
*

My given name is Angelique. While family and close friends to call me Angel, I feel that “Angel” sounds something like a stripper that gives happy endings in the Champagne Room for an extra $10*. Naturally, I don’t at all mind such a mental picture when it comes to my personal life, but in any professional or intellectual capacity, I go right for Angelique.

My theory is that the problem with Angelique is the Q. We don’t use Qs a lot and frankly, I think they just throw people off. My entire life, I’ve spent the better part of my time attempting to correct people who accidentally refer to me as any of the following: Angela, Angie, Angelina, Angelica, Angelic, Angelynne, and any other variation of Ang+some ending. All of my corrections are in vain though, as people will perpetually continue to get my name wrong.

Spanish speakers call me “An-hell-eek-a”, that I don’t mind as it’s just a different pronunciation. French speakers call me “On-shell-ee” or something of that nature- again, that I don’t so much mind.

And yet, I’ve noticed that lately everyone is still getting my name wrong and rather than correcting them, I just roll with it. Oh, and it’s not just the Ang names I respond to any more, oh no. We have a client who calls me Monique (even while looking directly at my business card), while another calls me Rachel (I’m guessing that sounds something similar to “Angel” when said quickly).

Hell, my friend’s 18 month old calls me Maggie (we have NO idea where he picked that up, everyone refers to me as Angel around him) and you know, I answer to it.

So what great battle have you recently given up on?

*Actually, when my mom told my grandfather she wanted to name me something where my nickname would be Angel, he said, “All the Angels I know are hookers!” Which was directly followed by a swift smack to the back of the head by my very Italian grandmother (those Italian women love smacking people in the head) who said, “So, EXACTLY HOW MANY HOOKERS DO YOU KNOW?” Ah, good times.

2

Lighten up, Francis.

3

Ahem .

4

snerk.

beat me by 2 minutes

My wife has the same problem.

It’s Joanna

not Joanne, Joan, Jo Ann, Jo, Joanie, etc.

5

OK, sweetie, we’ll try to remember.

6

Since it’s (apparently) not abundantly clear, perhaps I need to add a disclaimer. In the OP, I was being facetious. Exaggerating something silly for entertainment, if you will. Clearly I failed at this. My bad, y’all. My intent was to start a silly, light hearted thread. I suppose my tone in the OP wasn’t clear enough. Again: my bad.

7

Pfft. Lightweight.

My name is Todd. Not Scott, Bob, or the very strange Toddral.

8

Whoa, someone seriously called you Toddral? Is that even a name? People are amazing, aren’t they?

9

So how do you pronounce your name, and want others to say it?

In English I would say “ann-jell-eek”. In French “ah<nasal-n>-zhel-eek”. Or maybe “ah<nasal-n>-zhayl-eek” of the accent aigu was there over the middle e.

Or is this a spelling peeve?

10

Occasionally I enounter someone who spells my given name with one T on the end. Not two, one. It reminds me of the fad for spelling ‘cigarette’ with one T–‘cigaret’-- in the fifties. Very strange.

11

My husband always gets ‘Greg’ not his given Craig. How hard can that be?

(I think ButtDusty was also being facetious. :slight_smile: )

12

I, for one, am offended.

My first name is Kurt. I’ve been known to answer to Kirk, Craig, Greg, and Turk (OK, I made that last one up). I do get wound up over Curtis, though, probably because of relentless grade-school teasing. My last name is a train wreck that not even I pronounce correctly, so I long ago gave up on that.

Most of my other quixotic battles, I’m fighting until the bitter end. They’re good for a fume when I need one.

13

I always say to people “An-gel-eek”, which seems to be pretty much your first one.

One time I had a professor ask (casually after class) if she was pronouncing my name right. I said, “Oh yeah, everyone just calls me An-gel-eek, which is what you’re saying.” “Right,” she said, “Everyone says that, but is that correct? Like did your mom want that or the French version?” I paused and thought. I know I prefer the English version, but I called my mom to ask. Talk about an awkward start to a phone call: “Oh, hey, Mom. How do you say my name?” silence heh

She said she meant for it to be the English one. Which, btw, is what most people who correctly pronounce my name say without any prompting from me. Most professors can read it right off the attendance sheet just fine. Before college though, many teachers seemed to have problems with my name.

14

People are dumb.

An-ga-leek! It’s pretty fucking easy.

15

Not only did they pronounce it that way, they typed it like that on several forms, including letterhead and envelopes sent to me. And not just one person, an entire company. And they wouldn’t correct themselves when I told them it was wrong.

They were trying to sell me a very expensive surgical procedure. Yeah, that filled me with confidence.

16

The battle I gave up was trying to convey sarcasm through the internets.

17

I was just funnin’ w/ ya’. I had a Dr appt. monday and his nurse introduced herself as Angel. I’m like you, it has a kind of tacky sound to it in a more formal/business setting. Angel always reminds me of the sidekick/nemesis on The Rockford Files. He was played by Stewart Margolin: http://www.thesandbox.net/arm/rockford/multimedia/gallery1_files/page6-1000-thumb.jpg

18

Ok, my bad. . . again heh. I just wanted to be clear with everything.

And yeah, Angel totally sounds like either a stripper, a hooker, a stripping hooker, or a 45 year old woman chain smoking while in a leopard print spandex dress, platinum blonde, ratty hair, fuschia lipstick, and blue eye shadow.

19

Or, on a more positive note, Debbie Harry in “Rock and Rule”. :slight_smile:

20

My username is my real name. Try and pronounce it.

(Eastern Europeans nearly always get it right the first time, everyone else is usually waaaaaay off.)