Misnaming, revisited
Topics/tags: Miscellaneous, short
A few weeks ago, I mused about ways in which people are
misnamed. In that musing, I focused on
issues in which someone knows someone else’s name but pronounces
it wrong (e.g., pronouncing Jeff
as Yeff
), spells it wrong
(e.g., Jacbosonn
rather than Jacobsen
[1] or Sarah
rather than
Sara
), or inverts first and last name (e.g., addressing Sam
Alexander
as if their first name is Alex
).
The Facebook responses that I received showed a lot of frustration at these issues, but also at the more extreme versions of misnaming, in which they get addressed by the wrong name or receive email that was not intended for them
Many folks get irritated when someone calls them a name other than their own. It may be the name of someone who looks like them [2]. It may be their dead name [3]. It may be the name of a relative. It may be a name that is not clearly associated with them.
Middle Son experiences that feeling with some regularity. For
example, when he was elected as a senator, it was announced that
Samuel Rebelsky is your senator from Smounker
. He also gets email
that is intended for me, and I sometimes get email that is intended
for him [4]. Don’t worry; he usually forwards the email to me and
then deletes it immediately. In cases in which it is a FERPA
violation, he also notifies an appropriate person [5].
Middle is not the first person to get email intended for me; Eldest
also got received email for me with some regularity. One of my
favorite such instances was when there was a discussion of active
bystander training [6] that I was attending. Jen Jacobsen
sent out a message that said something like Don’t forget to attend
the dissuasion of active bystander training.
While he had no memory
of agreeing to attend such a session, he is both a trained bystander
and a trainer, and since he trusted Jen explicitly, he assumed that
the email was intended for him and he showed up [7].
For some time, Mark French was likely the most common recipient of misaddressed email at Grinnell. His email was just [french] [8]. If I recall correctly, he got email intended for Chris French, Brigittine French [9], and the French Department [10].
I certainly fall into the category of those who don’t pay enough
attention to their email autocomplete and therefore send messages
to the wrong recipient. Like Middle, I’ve encountered times that
I intend to send a message to myself but instead send it to another
member of my family. I still don’t understand autocomplete in
Apple Mail; even though I send email to myself more frequently than
I sent email to any other members of my department, it rarely lists
my name. One of my former advisees, named Michael, reminds me that
I was too used to typing Mich
to send email to Michelle and often
ended up sending email to him instead. These days, I sometimes mix
up the three Karlas to whom I often send email.
I’ll admit that I also fall into the category of misnamers
[11]. There
are students who have similar name patterns that I’ve inverted with
some regularity, even when one graduated and the other hadn’t. I
regularly used the same name for two of my research students, who
did not look or act similarly. In the past, I’ve used a student’s
dead name much more than they considered acceptable. For some
reason, my brain can’t always pick the right name for someone. I
know that I’m not alone in this. Strangely, I’m often able to
describe them (e.g., CS major from Minnesota, plays Ultimate,
studied abroad in India, TA for my 300-level course
and CS major
from Massachusetts, plays Ultimate, also doing education, studied
abroad in Central or South America
) even when I name people
incorrectly.
It’s not fun to be misnamed. However, in most cases, the people doing the misnaming are not doing so intentionally; I expect that most people doing the misemailing aren’t doing so intentionally, either. I know it can be hard, but when you are misnamed, please take a deep breath, accept that it was likely unintentional, and correct the person gently.
However, if you get misdirected email that contains FERPA-protected information, make sure to report it to the College’s FERPA officer [12].
[1] In high school, I had a friend named Jenney
, with the extra e
.
I’m not sure that anyone every spelled their name correctly. Their
mother’s name also had an unusual spelling.
[2] Unfortunately, some people experience other peoples’ broad view of
looks like you
, such as has a similar skin color to you
.
[3] For those not familiar with the terminology, the term dead name
is often used to refer to someone’s previous name, most frequently
when the name change has accompanied a gender change.
[4] I believe that there was at least one time when he sent me email that he wanted to send to himself. It’s the wonder of computer autocomplete.
[5] At times, I do so, too. In the rare times that he’s gotten info about one of my advisees, they’ve understood.
[6] Yes, active bystander
is one of my favorite oxymorons.
[7] I did, too.
[8] It was before the days of everyone needs eight letters, except
for high-level administrators
. It was also not in the year of Let’s
reveal students’ intended graduation year
.
[9] I expect that Brigittine also finds that her name is regularly misspelled. I’ve known her for nearly two decades, and I’ll admit that I sometimes have to check to make sure that I’ve doubled the right letter.
[10] Now the Department of French and Arabic.
[11] More accurately, frequent misnamers
.
[12] At Grinnell, that’s our Registrar.
Version 1.0 of 2019-12-29.