Can I spell that for you?

[jack]

If 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?

Comments

[cornute.livejournal.com]

At work, one of our common clients has me ask for both the caller's name and their child's name (about whom they're calling). There are only two ways to really annoy me:

1. --May I have your name?
--Lisa Schwarz.
--How do you spell Schwarz? (with my fingers hovering at SCHWAR over the T key)
--S-c-h-w-a-r-z.
--Thank you, and your child's name?
--Mackynzee-Bayleigh* Schwarz, S-c-h-w-a-r-z.
(Thanks, but I knew how to spell that bit by now, since I've typed it in three seconds ago and it's right in front of my eyes!)
I've actually even had people, umprompted, spell last names which I could think of NO possible alternate spelling for, ignoring that their first names had four or five possible spellings. My least favorite is Kathy/Kathi/Cathy/Cathi, because "Kathy with a y" isn't helpful enough.

2.
--How do you spell that?
--J...(pause of one second) A...(pause of one second)

I am a professional phone monkey (or "telecommunications primate" as we like to say) and my job requires me to type 90 wpm so that I can keep up with nurses blathering vital signs, names, and prescription medications at me while they're running down the hall. Ninety words per minute is 540 keystrokes per minute, which means I type nine times faster than people are willing to dole out the information.

Of course, if they say it as fast as I can type, they're going to slur the letters and I won't get it-- I find that spelling one's name at a comfortably fast speed of 3-4 letters per second is quite sufficient to get it spelt and done with before either of us rolls our eyes.

Of course, I'm very lucky, my boss doesn't directly rate my job performance on how brief my calls are-- however, there can be someone waiting on hold behind my caller, who might appreciate the extra 20 seconds of not having to wait for them to spell their name at glacial speed.

If you're not sure how fast 3-4 letters per second is, think of the 80's pop song "867-5309". And now try NOT to think of it...

Corrvin (who can spell my full name in 3 seconds)

---

*I'm quite cantankerous over this new rule, "A boy's name becomes a girl's name when you've mangled the spelling."

[tig-b.livejournal.com]

You may not be able to think of any alternative spellings but I have been asked how to spell my surname in the UK ... their response to me spelling it out very slowly was: 'Oh it's like William with an 's' then!'


and one of the staff directories at work had my name as 'Wiilaims' for several months in spite of 4 attempts to get it corrected.

[cornute.livejournal.com]

"You may not be able to think of any alternative spellings but I have been asked how to spell my surname in the UK ... their response to me spelling it out very slowly was: 'Oh it's like William with an 's' then!'"

I can think of plenty of alternate spellings, but chances are, in our little state (1.5 million population) if someone has an unusual name, and you know only ONE other person in the state with that name, they're probably related and it's the same name (Catlett, for instance; there's only one spelling of it, a prominent family who supported OU and sponsored their huge music building).

Yay, small states and predictable spellings!

[megamole.livejournal.com]

www.utahnames.com

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I assume people can generally parse groups of letters: you can hear and remember 'daem' all by itself, there's no need to get each letter. But I feel forced to wait a moment between groups, which probably does make it slow because once you've gone even a touch too fast they didn't hear any of it for sure, and if you try to repeat it you get it twice so you end up having to reread the whole word back...

Fortunately many people give feedback, an "uh" as they're finishing lets you come up to speed quickly, without having to keep asking if they're ready.