Ms. Pronunciation

The phone rang. I picked it up from its cradle and said hello. It was a telemarketer.

I don't begrudge them or their job; I would list it as one of the most thankless, deplorable, if not horrible, job to have (next to gutting fish). No one likes telemarketers and certainly no one wants to talk to them, so I try to be polite when they call and quickly close the conversation (albeit in a Martha Stewart meets Mario Andretti way). They don't earn a high salary nor do they earn respect from the people on the receiving line of their script.

The man said, "Good evening, Miss Fer-ni-ni."

I can tell you, with obvious reason, that many people rarely pronounce my name correctly. It doesn't bother or offend me; however, if you know you are going to butcher it, why even try? Put away the vernacular knives and simply ask (how).

Fair-a-knee-knee.

If your parents were suckered into purchasing Hooked on Phonics (from a telemarketer, I'm sure) for you or you were lucky enough to borrow a copy from your local library and read it in bed instead of watching cartoons (yeah right), you could easily determine its pronunciation.

I must admit my goal in life is to marry a Smith. My former manager explained it means "little iron" in Italian, which, I'm sure, most people could easily read if surnames were translated for them every time.

However, I'm not going to complain. It could be worse...a professor at my undergraduate school had 26 letters in his name and people still attempted to digest his alphabet soup. Unfortunately, though, he can't marry a Smith.