#5. What's in a name?

There are very few instances of language use that I dislike. Even double negatives tend not to irritate me. Usually I hear something new and interesting and I try to understand it and try to work out why people use that specific feature. Language is personal and everyone uses language slightly differently. Some people swear, some people don't, some people drop their initial 'h', some people don't. I'll admit I don't like attitudes towards language "the youth are ruining the English language" blah blah blah. Erm, no we're not ruining it, we're changing it. People would never say the first land animal ruined fish by sprouting legs and trying something new. Language, just like the human race, is evolving. But there is one thing that can annoy me sometimes and that is the way people say my name.

As we already know, accents and dialects vary quite significantly, even across a land mass as small as the United Kingdom. And if we accept accents and dialects are personal to each and every person and everyone has the right to their own use of language, should we say their name the way they do?

For example. For three years at university I lived with a girl from Leeds called Sophie. Only she didn't say Sophie as I would, she said something like, "Surf-e". Now because Sophie said her name in this way, we called her Surf for three years, in fact we still do. But if she introduced herself as "Surf-e", who are we to correct her and actually pronounce her name "Sophie"?

If Sophie introduced herself with this pronunciation, it is her name and she knows it as "Surf-e", so shouldn't we stick to this?

I notice this when I'm in Manchester and I introduce myself as Rosie and people call me "Rowse-e". Sometimes, if I'm in a bad mood, I want to say "I'm sorry, that's not how you say my name", but I fear this would make my a hypocrite.

I love accents and language and everything language can do and has done and yet when people pronounce my name "Rowse-e", a little part of me wants to punch them in the face. Only a little part. A part of me the size of my little toe.

This goes back to the conversation I had with Humphrey at the party in Eastbourne. He "corrected" my pronunciation of the word "dancing", but would he have corrected me if my name were Tanya and I said Tanya rather than his pronunciation "Tarnya". Something tells me he wouldn't correct me then because it is my name, but nevertheless he would still call me "Tarnya" because that is how he knows to pronounce it.

I guess it's nothing really, a tiny insignificant point that will never change the world. But next time someone introduced themselves to you, see if you pronounce their name in the way they do, I would bet that if they have a different accent to you, you will pronounce it differently to them. Even though it's their name and not yours to change.