Do you feel better if I say "Egrish?

I'm absolutely floored, flummoxed, frustrated and _____ (fill in the alliterations here).

Among the basic words a child is taught is "low". As in high/low. That incidentally is my last name.

But strangers will insist on pronouncing it "Lau." Now, I know some of you have been guilty of it...grrrrr. But I really don't hold it against you. Honestly.

So, what is it about my name, especially when it's sight unseen, that anyone will assume "Low" is not pronounced the way they had been accustomed to pronouncing?

I understand the mistake can be committed when my accent and features betray my ethnicity. But wouldn't one err on the side of calling a spade a spade before being corrected?

Incidentally, my dad's birth certificate and IDs have him registered as Low as well as the alias Lau. But that's because Lau is the dialect derivative of Low.

Confusing, no? or is it Nau?

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Patrick: You say pot-ay-to, i say po-taw-to, I say to-may-to, you say to-maw-to........Incedentally, did you know that when for awhile, when you searched for my name in the New York Times web site, it says "Did you mean to mean "Patrick Virile?"

I haven't a clue as to why someone would mispronounce your last name. Mystified, even.

Me: Your name is tricky. And I can see the horrific association. When I first met you, I had to be careful to stress on the "el" syllable.

Jeremy: You know, if we simply spelled everything using the International Phonetic Alphabet, the problem might be solved. I'd make it so where there'd be a few clicks in my name for good measure, and maybe a back of the throat glottal stop, like in Qatar (pronounced like "gutter" except the "g" sound is so far in the back of your throat that it sounds like you're coughing up a hairball), just to mess with lazy American mouths.

If the "Low/Lau" thing is bad, how about those people who pronounce "Craig" as "Greg?" Seriously, there are people who can't.

Me: But that's a cultural difference, whereas a simple "low" or "eat" or "stupid" should not be mispronounced in the first place! And what you mentioned brought me to another point (but i didn't want to digress from my blog) is that why do newscasters insist on butchering other culture's pronounciation. We can't even say Iran like how the natives would say it, which is phonetically ee-run, not eye-ran.

I must admit I had difficulty getting a hang of "craig" when I first got here.

Jeremy: Honey, TV people aren't paid to be accurate. They're there to smile and look pretty.

Ray: You don't want to know how people mispronounce my last name ...

Me: Oooh. That name just opens lots of doors for taunts and abuse. Sorry...

Bob: Michelle's surname is Ten, yes Michelle TEN.

But from civil servants to disneyland staff, they insist of spelling it as TAN. Well, AS IF we did not KNOW how to spell our OWN names!!!

When we talk to telephone operators, some even say "are you sure?"...gosh!

Since we are on this topic, how do you pronounce Bevan?

Me: That's an interesting twist to my situation. I must admit I would do a doubletake as well. Check this out, my Singapore friend's surname is E, just E. Talk about the possibilities of being second-guessed everywhere they go.

Jeremy: I've heard it pronounced two ways: one way rhymes with "Kevin", the other is bev-AN, with the accent on the second syllable (but that's the British pronunciation--only time I've heard it that way was when I was learning about the British Labour party at University and Aneurin Bevan, founder of the NHS).

Me: Jeremy, you are so highly cultured. You're right on the latter.