Spelling names

[Tom Kysilko]

At 04:02 PM 9/26/2000 -0400, Alice Faber wrote:
>I'm starting to see a pattern here: nobody gets anybody else's name right!

When I was in grad school, we imported a prof from U of Chicago to teach a
course on J. L. Austin.  On the first day, he pronounced the name "Helmici"
as if it were Italian (It's Hungarian, according to its bearer.)  My friend
corrected him, but with an arrogance I considered typical, the prof tried
to tell him that he was mispronouncing his own name until he mentioned his
ethnicity.  "In that case, I will have to defer to your pronunciation,"
came the reply.  I was too timid to point out that he'd have to defer to my
friend if he told him it was pronounced Smith.

--Tom Kysilko (who doesn't experience this problem nearly as often as you'd
think)