It’s Phonetic!

Posted on July 10, 2007 by Guest Contributor

A voicemail came in over the weekend to the Secular Student Alliance (an organization I chair).

It was a sweet gesture. A loving one, really. I mean, the man says “God bless you” toward the end…

Have a listen (wav).

Here’s what bothers me.

How on Earth can this guy butcher my name that badly?! There’s no “R” in my first name. Both my first and last names are phonetically pronounced (Heh’-mint Meh’-tuh). I understand slight variations. I even get that some people think, because I’m Indian, it must be more difficult than it looks.

But he added a new syllable in my last name.

Damn him.

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  • http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~ludtke/prof/index.htm cautious

    Pardon me, Ma-he-tah, but since you are apparently on this “watchlist of the government”, do you know how I can join that list?

  • http://friendlyatheist.com FriendlyAtheist

    Pardon me, Ma-he-tah, but since you are apparently on this “watchlist of the government”, do you know how I can join that list?

    Become brown :)

  • Richard Wade

    Oh I don’t know, Hermit Mehita is a fairly good attempt for a guy who is cognitively challenged. What the hell is he complaining about?

  • http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~ludtke/prof/index.htm cautious

    (looks at skin)

    Oh! Ok, I knew I was doing something wrong. The next time I have an airplane flight I’ll have to remember to get a spray-on tan. Or (egads) a real one.

  • Maria

    LOL! this guy has issues…….don’t you think so, Mr. Ma-he-tah? LOL……..

  • Lee

    I can relate to name mispronunciation…
    Simply because I am female, you’d be surprised at how many people want to call me Leah (Lee’-uh) rather than Lee – in spite of the spelling. And let’s not even get me started on my last name, which is also simple, yet butchered regularly.

  • http://www.thegreenatheist.com TGA

    A nice demonstration of the intellectual level of some of those fundies.

  • HappyNat

    I agree with Richard, the fact that this guy can dial a phone impresses me and he got most of the letters in your name right. So he added a couple letters, he is just filling in the pretend gaps as he is used to doing.

  • http://tomesnyder.com/ Tom E. Snyder

    Damn him.

    Just curious–how can he be damned if there is no hell?

  • http://www.matsonwaggs.wordpress.com Kelly

    Wow, what a nut!

  • stogoe

    Tom Snyder, as there is no hell, whenever I get the urge to tell someone to ‘go to hell’ or the like, I try and tell them to ‘die in a fire’ instead.

  • Polly

    Don’t even get me started on name pronunciation – my last name has 4 syllables and I’ve heard people butcher or reinvent each and every one.

    I want to scream the same thing, “IT’S PHONETIC!!!” (minus a silent h). Instead I get all kinds of added syllables and letters. I get an “R” too. The few Brits that I’ve spoken to, on the other hand, pronounce my name BETTER than I do, without the anglicizing.

  • http://unix.culti.st/ Ceri

    Damn him.

    Damned by the dogs of reason / petty bickering, I trust?

  • Vincent

    ht just doesn’t appear much in the English language.
    It has to have something in there. And since the guy sounds southern, everyone knows accents of the rural south add sylables. (e.g. well = way-ul).

    You should be honored to have a name confused with Kermit the frog.

  • miller

    All this time, I’ve been mentally pronouncing your name with the emphasis on the second syllable in each word and with both a’s rhyming with “paw”. For your name to be phonetic, it would have to be spelled “Hemint”. Ironically, my first name also has an ‘a’ that is pronounced like an ‘i.’

  • Julie Marie

    And since the guy sounds southern, everyone knows accents of the rural south add sylables.

    now wait a minute hee-yah, I resemble that comment. Ah’ve lived ’round these parts for so long Ah consider myself southern…and as I listened to this fellow I was thinking he sounded northern! I reckon no one wants to believe he could be living next door.

    he must be objecting to your very existance, because I haven’t read anything assholey here…and I’ve been following along since the ebay atheist project. I started out as one who was certain God would find you as you sat in service after service :)

  • ash

    on the subject of name pronounciation, my name’s aisling (ash-ling). to save confusion, i normally stick to Ash. you have no idea how galling it is every time i go to the doctors and they call out for an ailing child (yes, truely my surname.) piss takers.

  • Nick

    This is a bit of an obscure reference, but for some reason, this VM, to me, is completely reminiscent of Track 6 on Tool’s Album “AEnima”. It’s called Message to Harry Manback, and it has a guy with similar mindset talking about since he can’t beat the owner of the phoneline up, he predicts that the owner is going to die of cancer.
    It has a very high weird %

  • Maria

    I agree with Richard, the fact that this guy can dial a phone impresses me and he got most of the letters in your name right. So he added a couple letters, he is just filling in the pretend gaps as he is used to doing.

    LOL, I agree

  • http://friendlyatheist.com/2007/07/26/hermant-maheeta-remix/ Friendly Atheist » Hermant Maheeta Remix

    [...] that guy who left the Secular Student Alliance an interesting voicemail where he butchered my name and called me an [...]

  • Michael Bolton

    Yeah, well at least your name isn’t Michael Bolton.