There seems to be a rash of misspellers on my blog of late. My mom and dad, because my father\u2019s father came from Scotland (one \u201ct\u201d kind of land), saddled me with a one \u201ct\u201d kind of first name and I have lived my whole life getting folks to spell that name correctly.
\nHere\u2019s an odd question for those of us who have names that are routinely misspelt: What\u2019s your best story about your name\u2019s spelling or misspelling? Here\u2019s mine:
\nAs a kindergartner, my teacher wrote everyone\u2019s name on the chalkboard. Then she went through the room, seeing if we could spell our names, asking each of us to go to the board and erase our name from the board if we saw it. Well, I sat there refusing to erase a name that looked so much like my name that I was tempted to humor her and just give in. But, no, not this proud \u201cScot.\u201d Finally, I explained to her that there was no \u201cdaghesh\u201d (the Hebrew dot that doubles a consonant \u2014 I actually didn\u2019t say that) in my name and that, if she would kindly erase that second \u201ct\u201d I\u2019d be glad to erase my name.
\nI think that day she also wanted to teach us how to \u201cbounce\u201d a ball. When I got the ball I began to dribble all around the room, weaving between the desks like Curly Neal, and she got all flustered and bothered by my hubris. Within the week my parents pulled me from kindergarten and let me stay home another year. Kindergarten dropout, as in \u201cbeauty school dropout.\u201d
\nSo there folks. Spell this Scot\u2019s name with one \u201ct\u201d and you\u2019ll keep him from saying silly things to you in private e-mails or on this blog!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There seems to be a rash of misspellers on my blog of late. My mom and dad, because my father\u2019s father came from Scotland (one \u201ct\u201d kind of land), saddled me with a one \u201ct\u201d kind of first name and I have lived my whole life getting folks to spell that name correctly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n