Wednesday, August 4, 2010

People with the Names and the Sounds and the Confusion-Making and the Headache-Causing

Listen, people. Stop it with the names that sound the same but are just barely different, alright? Between myself and Emily, here's a list of some girls we know:

Shalayne
Chalyce
Charisse
Sharee
Shirene
Sharookwanoonaynaynaynay Elizabeth

Can guess which one is Canadian/fake?

This reminds me of the first time I visited DC back in '04. I was approached by this gawky teenager dressed in hand-me-downs from the 80s. He invited me to this play that his religious organization was putting on that night at the National Mall, about a talking, suit-wearing ant who tries to warn humanity of impending doom, but nobody listens to him (and understandably so -- suits can be very off-putting). I had to run to catch up to my sister later that afternoon, so I expressed my regrets and shook his hand as I started to leave.

"What's your name?" he asked.

I quickly replied, "Mark."

"Marf ?" (And people wonder why I go by my nickname more often than not.)

"... No. Mark. With a k."

"Oh."

"And yours?"

"I'm Zerubbabel!"

Zerubbabel. Now THERE'S a name that's never going to be phonetically toyed with.

Protect your babies. Name them Zerubbabel.

8 comments:

Amy Reid said...

OH, goodness. Shark, you've got me laughing again! My personal pet peeves are names that cause gender confusion (Jordan is a boy's name, for heaven's sake!) or the ones that are spelled freakishly because the parents were trying to be creative, when all they've done is cause their child to spend their whole life spelling their name slowly for everyone and still having it misspelled (example= EmmiLee--I had a student w/ that name last year! She got upset if anyone forgot to capitalize the L or if they put a space in it!). Be nice to your kids, folks!

Tracy said...

HA HA HA!! It is about time you updated your blog, and this was worth the wait. I SO agree, but you put in so much better than I ever could. Probably because you are funnier than I.

Ted said...

Many years ago, some friends and I went to Denny's at 2 in the morning. The host/waiter was wearing a name tag which read "Ikkaka". This was during the time when Beavis and Butthead were popular, and one of my friends started to do his Beavis/Cornholio impersonation. He started walking around saying "EEE KA KA!" For some reason this upset Ikkaka, and he yelled "You better knock it off!" at my friend, who responded by pulling his t-shirt up over his head, putting his arms up in the air and shouting "ARE YOU THREATENING ME??!?!" We ended up dragging our friend out of the restaurant before a brawl was started.

Tegeders in Renton, WA said...

Bort, it was good to see that you've returned to your blog after a long hiatus.

Scuba Nurse said...

Oh my god, surely that is child cruelty?

Daisy said...

Lol. This made me smile. Where I live all the teenage mums give their babies names like this! My favourate is the girl in New Zealand who sued her parents for naming her "Talula does the hula from Hawaii".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7522952.stm

http://daisychain76.blogspot.com/

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