Can I spell that for you?
Jun. 7th, 2006 05:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackIf you don't know whether someone has your name on a computer in front of them or not, is there any polite way to spell it or offer to spell it?
* Trust them to ask if necessary. But then if they do need to write it down they often don't ask and get it wrong.
* Just spell it. This seems pushy, especially if they already know because the phone number, or first two letters, or whatever, is enough to bring up an existing record in their database, or aren't ready to write it down yet.
* Say "Can I spell that for you?" This is what I normally do, and has worked up to now, when someone said no, he was fine. No you're not! I'm sorry, it wasn't my choice, but there's no way of telling the spelling from the pronunciation.
* Say "It's an unusual spelling, if you don't know it already I'll have to spell it for you.I'm sorry this sentence is so long, but I have to explain that I'm not implicitely assuming ignorance on your part,"
Perhaps I should stick with #3. After all, it's reasonable that if someone assumes you can tell them it's unusual. But I have a particularly adverse reaction to people correcting assumptions, it always seems implicitely insulting.
Or go with 4. But it seems too much of a mouthful, that can't be fun for them either.
Mum, what do you do?
* Trust them to ask if necessary. But then if they do need to write it down they often don't ask and get it wrong.
* Just spell it. This seems pushy, especially if they already know because the phone number, or first two letters, or whatever, is enough to bring up an existing record in their database, or aren't ready to write it down yet.
* Say "Can I spell that for you?" This is what I normally do, and has worked up to now, when someone said no, he was fine. No you're not! I'm sorry, it wasn't my choice, but there's no way of telling the spelling from the pronunciation.
* Say "It's an unusual spelling, if you don't know it already I'll have to spell it for you.
Perhaps I should stick with #3. After all, it's reasonable that if someone assumes you can tell them it's unusual. But I have a particularly adverse reaction to people correcting assumptions, it always seems implicitely insulting.
Or go with 4. But it seems too much of a mouthful, that can't be fun for them either.
Mum, what do you do?
no subject
Date: 2006-06-07 04:41 pm (UTC)After all, I do understand, especially if you do it all day, your brain stumbling at one point when it *thinks* it knows the answer; or if you're used to different letters; so imply that it's an obvious mistake anyone could make, and I'm just providing a slight clarification.
What's worst is when you're eg. on the phone, and you *think* they've messed it up twice in a row, but can't be sure, and have to find a polite way to say "I know you told me everything was fine, but that's what you said the last two times. Could you read it back to me anyway, just so I can check? Again?"