I have a tendency to monosyllableize+s people's names. Aims, Lis, Jules, etc. I try not to do it without permission, but it does slip out.

How kind of you to keep track of that. I honestly had no recollection.

What can I say? It's a gift.

But I bet if I'd introduced myself to you in person, you'd have listened to the sounds and taken them on board, rather than proceeded to call me Nicholas, NicOLEuh, Nicole or Nicolai for the next month or so. (Which is more than can be said for some of my co-workers.)

Heh. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I introduce myself as "Steph" and the person repeats it back as "Stephanie," thusly:

Me: Hi, I'm Steph.
Other person: Nice to meet you, Stephanie.
Me: [seethe]

I mean, is it THAT hard to say my one-syllable name? It's MORE work to tack the other 2 syllables back on it. It would be like someone being introduced to me as Joe, and then me calling him Joseph.

If I *wanted* to be called Stephanie, I would have introduced myself that way, damn it.

When I was pregnant with my son, my daughter (4.5 at the time) insisted that a) he would be a girl and b) we would name him Rachel. When we got home from the hospital with him, she started calling him Rachel. He's almost 10 now and she still calls him Rachel, although now I'm sure it's only to piss him off. His name is David - it comes with several nicknames built in but mostly? He's still Rachel.

My parents deliberately gave us un-nickable names.

My father's name is William-called-Bill. He hated being called 'Billy' so much as a youth that he did his best to give me an un-nickable name. There have been some valiant efforts to give me nicknames (the most memorable one probably being 'Spoon-Head'), but fortunately none of them have stuck.

The less said about the spelling and pronunciation of my surname, the better.

Cindy, one of our housemates is named Cindy-called-Cin, and I always wonder why she's talking about someone named Christopher when I read your journal on my friends' page, before I realise, "Whoops, wrong Cindy."

Juliana, I had a good friend named Juliana-called-Jules about a decade ago, and have tried very hard to keep that nick away from you in my brain, with some success. Mostly I think of you as "our beloved Juliana," from just before you moved out here, which is occasionally initialised to "OBJ," which reminds me of LBJ and makes me giggle.

It is possible that the inside of my brain is a strange and scary place.

If anything, you have to admire his commitment to (albeit wrongheaded) logical consistency, as well as his willingness to get punched in the face by a girl.

I am certainly filled with admiration, though not necessarily of him.

t crushing on amych

which is occasionally initialised to "OBJ," which reminds me of LBJ and makes me giggle.

Now that you mention it, it makes my brain start in on "L-B-J took the I-R-T..." and then I start thinking she went to the wrong coast, dagnabbit.

What can I say? It's a gift.

Which is a blessing. Clearly I'm not nearly pedantic enough.

Also crushing on amych, but crushing on Karl and his spicy brains more.

how do you pronounce your Karen

It's a 'Kah-run', with slightly more emphasis on the first syllable, but both of them still very short. 'Nicola', I would tend to pronounce 'NIC-o-lah' rather than 'NIC-o-luh', but I wouldn't find it an odd pronunciation at all.