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Category Archives: Name Game
The Name Game
My Life: The Movie
I was asked recently:
If they were making a movie about your life, what would it be called and which actor would play you?
I’m not sure what the title would be, but it would probably be a comedy. (In light of my recent interests, So You Think You Can Dance might be a good one , but I think that title’s already taken. Maybe I should just go with Casablanca and be done with it.
As far as the actor goes — most likely the casting director would be confused by my name and cast a woman to play me – Geena Davis might be a good choice, she has comedy/drama credits to her name (e.g. Cutthroat Island), she’s about my height, and her hair color is similar to mine. Oh sure, the producer would realize there’d been a mistake about the gender, but by that point Geena would already be under contract and it would be too expensive for the studio to back out. In the end, everyone would agree that this sort of mistake happens a lot in my life and so they’d end up keeping her.
When the movie came out, half the critics would watch the film and laugh uproariously, the other half would be confused. This would be very similar to most other things in my life.
It Was a Wednesday
Cia dropped me a line yesterday with a question in it. I replied and this morning she responded (font size and color are hers):
Thanks Liz!
My name has been known to confuse people, but never before in quite that manner, so once I finished laughing, I wrote back, “You do realize I’m gonna have to tease you about this, right?” Cia’s response was an instant classic:
Oh No!! It was early! I didn’t have my glasses on! It was a Wednesday!
I’ll try to come up with some better excuses later.
Well sure, that’s how it is with Wednesdays.
The Extra Letter
Well, it happened again. Someone made one of the classic mistakes about my name.
Assuming “Blair” to be a woman’s name happens pretty often, and sometimes has “interesting” consequences. When I first joined the workforce, my employer accidentally signed me up for maternity-related insurance.
That wasn’t today’s goof.
Another common error is for people to assume they misheard my name. The most common “correction” is to change it to “Brian.” (I always have to add my name to spell-checker dictionaries so they won’t automatically get it wrong.) Over the years, in addition to Brian, I’ve also been called Blake, Bill, Jim and just a few weeks ago, Cliff.
That wasn’t today’s goof either.
Today was name error number three – the dreaded Extra Letter.
For some reason, people like to add an ‘e’ at the end of my name. It kind of ties back into the first mistake in that the one and only time I’ve ever seen it spelled “Blaire,” it really was a woman’s name.
But Scotte [sic] and I have met on several occasions. He knows me well enough to avoid that mistake. And we’ve traded enough e-mail that he should know the correct spelling. I figure he just made an honest spelling error. It happens.
But the person with the best excuse for that goof is a woman I know named Claire. Aside from the ‘c’, our names are pronounced identically and calling out either of our names will likely get both of us to respond.
According to Claire, the way she spells my name when typing it on the computer is B-L-A-I-R-E-[Backspace]. 🙂
Higher Education
Back in the 1980s, Lisa Whelchel played the role of Blair Warner on the sitcom "The Facts of Life." As one might suspect, the show’s popularity led to a lot of confusion about the name "Blair."
I’d really like to meet Lisa one day so I can finally thank her for that time back in college when I was mistakenly assigned to the girls’ dorm.
That weekend had potential to be quite educational. 🙂