Nothing grinds my gears more than when someone mispronounces my name. My name is spelled Andrea. It is NOT pronounced the Anglo-Saxon way in which it would be pronounced Anne-dri-ah. My name is pronounced awn-DRAY-uh. This is because my name is pronounced with a Spanish accent and LET ME TELL YOU how excited and happy and just so full of joy I was when I made a Facebook and they had the option to choose how to pronounce your name.
Look at this! Isn’t this amazing? Oh yeah, and my last name is always mispronounced too. I find that funny because after I correct the teacher on how to pronounce my first name, they proceed to mispronounce my last name, and then the correcting takes place once again. I can’t ever get a break.
You think that I would have gotten to used to it by now but NOPE. It happens to me all the time, throughout my entire life and yet – I will never be used to it.
I’ve already accepted the fact that it will always be mispronounced but that doesn’t mean that I have to just let it happen. It will always bother me and I WILL correct you if you get it wrong. Side note: I once corrected my teacher in front of the class and he spoke to me outside the classroom to scold me for correcting him. Granted, I corrected him with too much attitude and it came off highly disrespectful, but it’s my name and it will be respected.
That being said: Here are a series of gifs that are over 9000% (pun intended – if you get it, you get it *insert smirk emoji*) relatable to the feelings I get when my name is mispronounced.
Haha, I would be ROLLING in money (that’s kind of gross considering money is incredibly dirty). If this were a real concept, you can catch me at the store looking like this AND MORE.
(I went ham at King of Prussia Mall and I. AM. NOT. ASHAMED!)
Depending on my mood, I will react differently to when my name is mispronounced. Nine times out of ten, I will be angry. I channel the anger with a subtle and defeated eye roll or sigh, and it is usually accompanied with internal screaming. But, nothing is more relatable than Bon Qui Qui.
I know whoever is mispronouncing my name doesn’t mean to. I know that’s not his/her intentions. However, it’s going to be a no for me. Also, nothing kills me more or disrespects me more than when my so-called “friends” mispronounce my name just to torment me.
If they were real friends they wouldn’t do that because it genuinely hurts me. It makes me really sad. Why does it bother me so much? I’ll let John Proctor tell you why.
There is so much to your name. As Jason Mraz sings, “our name is our virtue”. I take pride in my name because it is me. I love my name. Even in the worst possible case scenario, if you have everything stripped away from you, your name is the one thing you have left. It is how you are identified. It is how you leave your mark in history. John Proctor knows exactly what I’m talking about.
Considering this is probably the thing that makes me the saddest, it’s also one of the things that make happiest when it actually is pronounced correctly the first time it is said. Every time a new teacher is doing roll call and he/she goes down the list (alphabetically), my heart rate gradually gets faster as the last names get closer to P (for Ponce). There is always so much suspense building up inside of me during those moments. There’s this unsettling feeling inside me most of the time because I’m already expecting to be disappointed and yet, despite my name being mispronounced 99 times out of 100, I still have the slightest hope that the teacher just might get it right. Those moments are 1 out of 100 but when it does happen. Man oh man.
It makes me so happy. :)