I did it again this morning. I hadn’t had any coffee yet but it’s not the first time I’ve done this. For some inexplicable reason I keep mixing up their names. I’ve know the dog for several years and the co-worker for a few less. But this is only a recent thing in the past several months. The dog doesn’t care but the co-worker is a little insulted. The names aren’t homonyms, synonyms or antonyms. They have two syllables and end in an “ee” sound but they start with different letters (although the letters are consecutive). The dog and co-worker are nothing alike, the dog is energetic, the co-worker is not; the dog is fat the co-worker is slim; the co-worker smokes, the dog does not; I love the dog …
I hate doing this. I know the feeling of being called by the dog’s name. When I was younger and my mother was yelling at us my mother would always call my older sister’s name and the dog’s name before mine and I was older than the dog! She should have known my name, I should have come before the dog! It’s a wonder I ever learned my own name. Maybe I am mixing up the names because I don’t have kids to call by the wrong name and dog and co-worker are like kids sometimes?
How do I stop doing this? Does anyone else do anything like this? Or does anyone else get called by the dog’s name?
God. There are 3 Filippina nurses that I work with. Actually, there are 2 and an aide. Two of them have names that start with T. These names do not rhyme, but they both end in “a”. I routinely call the RN by the aide’s name and vice versa. One of them told me the other day that it must be because “all Filipinas look alike to you.”
Gah. NO. :eek: :rolleyes:
I am trying. I don’t know what it is. At least my cat’s name isn’t T----a…
Good luck.
My mother used to call me by our dog’s name, and the dog by mine all the time. It never happens, now that the dog is long gone. Nor does Pepper Mill mix up either MilliCal or me with our cats, although we’ll sometimes call the cats by the wrong names.
I don’t do it with the critters, but for some reason, I occasionally start to call my daughter by my sister’s name. Bear in mind, the names are nothing alike, nor are my kid and this sis. If I may quote Dan Quayle - “What a waste it is to lose your mind…”
Sometimes I call my fiancee by my ex-wife’s name. Hilarity does not ensue.
My grandmother had a thing about names too. She had two sons, and I’m the oldest grandson. So my name, more often than not, was [Her first son]-[her second son]-[Sean]. It just got worse for my younger male cousins.
When my kids were little, and I caught one of them misbehaving, I would occassionally call them “Fester,” the name of our (extremely ill-behaved) cat. I think it was something about the guilty look in the eye.
Not the dog’s name, but I once introduced a buddy of mine as “Clark” to all my friends at a party. Drove him crazy for weeks after, he’d be on campus with strangers going “yo! Clark! howzit goin’?”
My mother calls my by her sister’s name–and vice versa.
She does the same with my brother and her brother.
My name and my aunt’s name start with the same letter but do not otherwise sound alike. (My brother and uncle don’t even have that much in common).
The tendency gets worse when she’s talking to her mother or her other sibling.
My mother teaches 3 and 4 year olds. When she can’t remember one of their names, she calls the kid “George”. The kid responds by telling her what his or her name really is.
She’ll be in trouble if she ever gets a kid named George in her class.
I usually address everyone as lad or lass to prevent problems. Don’t know why I have such terrible memory for names, maybe what they used to say about pot and short term memory was really true.
In the case of coworkers you could just refer to everyone as comrade and in the case of calling the fiance by the ex’s name, adopt a generic hon, honey, luv or whatever.
I occasionally call my wife by the cat’s name. The cat has a human name and it starts with the same two letters as my wife’s name, so that’s not too bad.
My mother used to call be by the dog’ name. The dog’s name was Whiskey. That one isn’t so understandable.
No, the dog’s name is a common name also used for female humans. The co-worker does know the dog, and knows when I accidentally call her by the dog’s name. I work at a vet clinic and the dog occasionally donates blood or goes to work with me. Hmm … I just realized that I may have started mixing up their names when the co-worker came to my house to pick up the dog for an emergency blood donation. Something about both of them being at my home and then leaving together must have shorted out a circuit in my brain.
Well, at least I am glad to hear that I am not the only one who does this or who got called by the pet’s name.
