When someone mispronounces your name, it’s not a mistake, it’s a message. What they’re saying to you is deeply hurtful. How can they not know what you’ve known since birth. You may have had an inkling pre-birth, in those heady halcyon days when there was nothing to do but float and wait.
People see my last name and they think it’s acceptable for non-dyslexics to reverse the “i” and “e” in Mosier settling on a name that vaguely sounds like moisture. It’s enough to make a grown man sweat. Then there are those who insist on excising the “i” entirely under the premise that the surname has plenty of vowels already. This transforms into a name too Teutonic for anyone this side of the Rhine. “Moser” with a hard z. Then there’s the unapologetic Frenchification: “Mo-zee-ay” that usually comes with a side of “Olivier.” That’s where the “i” must have gone. I don’t support it, I don’t condone it, and I don’t respond. I need to be addressed perfectly before deigning to answer even the simplest of questions. It’s an American name, in case you were wondering.
The point is this. When someone can’t say your first name, last name, pet’s name, child’s name, the prudent thing to do is to take offense. It’s by definition, a personal attack; on your character, your identity, your literal sense of self.
It’s simple, really. Mosier rhymes with closure. Got that?
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