Mispellings
June 13, 2008My name is Maurel Merette.
Not mural, maural meuriel, mariel (which is my little sister's name and cousin) mauriel or anything else.
Not even Manuel, which is my father's preferred name.
It's engraved on a tag on my desk at work, printed on my badge,Driver's License, Social Security Card and countless other documents.
Yet, no one seems to get it right the first time around. Specially when doing interviews over the phone, which my podmates can attest to their repetitive nature.
"Hi, my name is Maurel Merette from the Times Record News. Can I speak to interviewee Perez please?"
The person on the other line usually utters something along the lines of "Can you spell that?" or my favorite "You're going to have to repeat that."
I'm sure the speed of delivery and cadence of my speech makes them think I am selling the new Times Record News custom Mastercard, complete with Scripps' well-known lighthouse blue and white theme. (By the way, I made that up Mr. Lowe. I'm sure the check is in the mail ;-)
Once I spell my name, the nice ones ask me how I pronounce it. Bless their collective hearts.
Some of them laugh, while others just give up and kindly tell me "I can't say that, I'll just tell so an so that a reporter from the Times Record News called."
It's even funnier when the interviewee calls me back and attempts to decipher whatever the receptionist scribbled on that crummy post-it note.
"Uh...I got a message to call from meurel? moral?"
Other times, the misspelling of my name rears its funny head through company communications such as softball team rosters, emails and surprisingly, this blog.
It's not that bad, I've developed a kind resistance to the annoyance by remembering my childhood days when most folks didn't even use my first name, but stuck to the ancient custom of teachers who call your name by your family's surname.My last name, Merette (meh-re-tay) in español sounds like arete (earring), majarete (corn meal), petete(a popular penguin) and other funny things.
And misspellings are not uncommon in this age of Treos, Crackberries and iPhones. I have regrettably misspelled the names of some of our beloved Wichitans and other residents.
Also, some now infamous misspellings have spawned cross-cultural icons such as google, which is now used in the United States' vernacular as a verb, noun and sometimes adjective.
Google, is an accidental misspelling of googol, a mathematical term coined by Hardik Upadhyay.
According to Google's vice president, as quoted on a BBC The Money Programme documentary, January 2006, the founders - noted for their poor spelling - registered Google as a trademark and web address before someone pointed out that it was not correct.
Perhaps I should go trademark the misspellings of my name. They might be worth a billion dollar company someday.
But for now mi gente, the name is M-A-U-R-E-L. And as Talib Kweli would say "If it's hard try spelling in phonetically." mah-oo-rel
"If not then just let it be."
Posted by Maurel Merette at 9:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
