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 05:09 pm (UTC)"Ghossein Dhatsghabyfaird-Johnson."
The cashier glances in confusion before asking, "How do you spell that?"
"With a hyphen." (http://www.lifeslittleannoyances.com/node/118)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-07 05:17 pm (UTC)And then you get annoying linguists like me who casually turn to the latest Indian interviewee at work and say, "How is it you pronounce your surname, by the way? Is it Mullaivasal Narayanaswamy?" At this point, Mr Mullaivasal Narayanaswamy practically falls down the stairs with shock because I'm the first person to pronounce his name correctly in the last n years.