Is this spelling part of the "whole language" thing that Joanne Jacobs writes about often?

I once shared workspace with a young lady named Chumuckla(on her name tag). She insisted on being called Sandy.
Go figure...

Great post! Too funny!

Hey! *I* am available to sip cawfee at 10am and talk about orgasms and I have an IQ above 120! Where do I sign up? ;)

Well said, Tamkia spells Tamkia, and Tamika spells Tamika. If she did get to a college, let's hope she's not an english proffessor whenever she graduates. Interesting blog,..makes mine almost not worth mentioning, although you have the adress if you care to see for yourself. Keep up the good work.

O.K, so I wouldn't make it as a spelling instructor either. Messed up on the prior comment...."adress" and the url...(try the link). Thanks, bye.

It's unfortunate but true - life itself is an IQ test. At least her macerated ego is in fine fettle.

I once knew a girl named Chiquita. Yes, like the banana. Nice gal, but she wore colored contacts that made her eyes gold. Freaky.

Definitely a labor of love--great post. Got my Labor Day off to a good start.

Ya know. It's not little Tamkia's fault. It's her mom's. You can't expect her to know better. Not until she gets older, anyway.

With luck, she'll figure out as she gets older that she's not "oppressed" by other people's notions of spelling.

Whooo! Thank goodness for the "self-esteem" movement! That wonderful idea has done this country so well....mmmmm boy. People who raise their children to behave like that need to be subjected to forced sterilization. Or at least required to pass a basic parenting class - which you know they couldn't pass anyway...

Aarrgh. The story you relate about little Tamika (it's spelled T-a-m-k-i-a but pronounced ignoramus) comes right on the heels of the story of that poor woman in Baltimore who has been forced to apologize to an illiterate, and every other child and parent in the class she teaches, for assigning the word "niggardly" on a spelling list.

Only some sort of angel would voluntarily become a teacher and try to lift these hopeless fools out of their ignorance.

Don't tell my wife, but I once dated a gal who was called "Suzanne" by her mother, but the gal herself changed her name to "Siouxsan." She was all earthy and chrystal pyramid-ish and newage. Couldn't stand it. But at least the "Sioux" part wasn't a sign of dyslexia.

I was telling my father about a female colleague named Toreasor (pronounced, of course, Teresa), when he confessed that on the evening of my birth he'd told the nurse to put "Paul Quinten Gregory Woodford" on my birth certificate. The middle name he'd intended to bestow upon me was "Quentin."

I then had to counter-confess that on the evening of my son's birth I named him "Gregory Charles Issac Woodford" - meaning, of course, "Isaac," in honor of Isaac Asimov.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Paul Woodford

*Sigh!* I guess that TaMIKA must've been working (kind of) at the DMV the other day. She insisted that I was ignorant when I told her that my first name, spelled Stephen, was not pronounced "Steffon" (StefFON to be precise). Now I understand! She was the victim of an oppressive Eurocentric society! *Sniff!* And we all know that that kind of opression can only be counteracted by a large repartions payment (preferably in cash).

I suppose Tamkia could point out that Brett Favre has gotten millions of folks to pronounce his name "Farve."

I think there's something interesting about a pronunciation that no one could possibly know by reading it. It’s one way to keep your name private and prevent it from being kicked around by strangers who assume that they can be on a first-name basis with you because they’ve read your name somewhere.

I’ve always thought making employees wear nametags so that anyone can speak to them like an old acquaintances was a little strange. Think about it. When someone knows your name they know something about you that they could have never guessed unless you told them, they asked someone else who knew, or you were wearing a nametag. Unless you have flaming red hair and your name is Red, your name must be revealed by you for someone to know it. That’s one reason names are so special, so interesting, so sacred. And it’s why the Bible has plenty of stories that stress the importance of names.

But back to the point of representing names in writing. Yes, it’s a little odd to spell your name in a way that no one except you, your family, and your friends could properly pronounce. But maybe there’s something to it?

Reminds me of the wife of this guy I used to work with. She was a teacher, and had a student named (don't know the way it was spelled, just the word it came from) Dysmenorrhea. Pronounced DISmenORea. Her mom saw it on a chart in the hospital and thought it sounded pretty.

Hopefully the poor girl learned enough to get her name changed, later on in life. Seriously, can you imagine?

I once encountered a heavy-set woman whose name was Rotunda. I met a mother who named her son Tony Anthony. And, though it may be an urban legend, I've heard tell of a baby girl who was christened Formika Dinette.

A friend of mine in Tallahassee once worked with a woman named Shithead. It was pronounced "Shih-THAYD" or "Shih-THEED," can't remember which. My friend says the name is commonly given to black women in the South. The reliably left-wing snopes.com claims this is a racist urban legend, but I believe my friend, who is not a bull$#|++er.

There was also a Rotunda in my high school. She went by the nickname Kissie.

I don't know how real this is anymore...but check THIS out...

Well snopes.com better check out the graduating class of 2000 for LaGrange High School in Lake Charles Louisiana if they don't think that people name their kids SHITHEAD pronounced SHUH-THEED because not only did I have to supress laughter , I later had someone try to shock me with "this is a real name" when he was telling me about someone that applied for a job at his mothers place of employment. He couldnt believe that I knew about it all. I do NOT know about the other accounts nationwide but I DO know that here in Lake Charles Louisiana, there lives a young man named Shithead.

LaGrange High School is located at
3420 Louisiana Ave
Lake Charles La 70605
(337)-526-9438