Cursed Tongue: Sarah with an H

Posted by CursedTongue on February 20, 2006

My husband and I are getting bids on having our landscape installed, and it seems that some of the businesses in that industry are creeping into the 21st century and sending actual quotes by e-mail.

One of the landscapers sent me two e-mails, and in each one spelled my name without the H. This is a person who is under the delusion that I might give him $8244.84 to install drip irrigation, and plant some trees. You’d think he’d take two seconds to have looked at the name I clearly remember spelling correctly when I wrote it down for him and I know I signed my e-mails with.

Blatant disregard for the spelling of my name makes me so mad I could kick fluffy white bunnies. In the face of such blatant disrespect I’m tempted to take the juvenile route and sign my next e-mail SaraH or Sarahhhhhhhhh. Of course, after I tell him in excruciating detail exactly where he can stick his quote.

We have our Micheles, our Brytanys, and our Jazmins, rest assured that misspelling Sarah is just as heinous. If you say the word Sarah you say the H whether it’s spelled that way or not. You might think that’s a good reason to go misspelling Sarah, but like that misguided landscape designer, you’d be terribly wrong. It’s spelled Sarah in the Bible for Lynda’s sake. How do you get a more definitive guide than the Bible? God spoke unto man and told him that Sarah was spelled with an H. An H! I’m sure that Pat Robertson would agree, anyone that misspells Sarah is just begging for a taste of Almighty Whoopass.

I won’t go so far as to say that there should be a Constitutional Mandate to change the names of people who were saddled with misspelled names, but there should be an awareness campaign to save future generations. People need to think about what they are doing to their children with creative spelling.

How many minutes a day will they spend correcting people who think that Jenifer is spelled the way everyone spells Jennifer? Those minutes snowball into days and months and years, my friend. And how sloppy does it look to have Madalyn at the top of a resume? Who has time to interview someone who doesn’t even know how to spell their own name?

When I was younger I thought someday I would get over my absolutely irrational horror at the misspelling of my name, but if anything I’ve gotten worse. I used to be freewheeling and think, “Who am I to tell people how to spell a name?” But it’s my name consarnit and there is the right way and the wrong way.

I suppose I’ll eventually be reduced to introducing myself this way, “Hi. My name is Sarah, with an H. Nice to meet you!”

- Sarah Letnes

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