Have you ever met anybody who seems to get frustrated if you misspell or mispronounce their name? I used to meet them all the time at conferences because we’d wear those name tags that say “Hello, my name is…”, or maybe it was just your name written beneath your company name. Sometimes they’d pin it to your lapel and other times it would hang around your neck on a lanyard.
Anyway, if you see the name “Peter,” I assume you’d be like me and pronounce it the normal way, right? Well, I’ve been wrong four times. It seems the pronunciation “Petter” is, well, better for some. Of course, as soon as I assume it’s “Petter,” they say, “What? It’s Peter, you fool.”
People can be just as sensitive about spelling. “No, there’s only one ‘T’,” he said, after saying his name was Scot. Great, now I have an extra ‘T’ in my life and I don’t know where to put it. Or an extra ‘N’ thanks to Ana.
Of course, people have the right to spell their name or pronounce it any way they want. George Carlin had a joke about it that went like this:
As a group or an individual you have the right to be called whatever you want. Your name can be spelled S-M-I-T-H and you pronounce it “Jenoffsky.” What’s your name? Jenoffsky. How’s that spelled? S-M-I-T-H. All the letters are silent.
-George Carlin
You probably know the old PR adage that there’s no such thing as bad press as long as you spell my name right. I think that’s probably true except if you did something illegal or immoral. It can backfire, for sure.
I remember the old Peloton ad got some flack for being sexist, and then they turned a huge profit. I’m pretty sure they didn’t make the ad with that intention, but it got people talking about it. Sometimes you have happy accidents, but I would be very careful before orchestrating any kind of controversy. That can backfire, too, for sure.
Getting the wrong kind of attention will quickly change your attitude from, “Do look at me” to “Don’t look at me.” Oh, that’s where the extra N and T ended up!