Years ago, when I worked for the City, a rather ambitious “I will be city manager someday” guy came up with the ingenious plan for us to all wear name tags. “It will make everyone more friendly and approachable,” he said. Sure – if we remembered to wear them. And if they weren't put on upside down. And if people knew how to pronounce your name. You would not believe how hard it is to pronounce ‘ej.’ AND how hard, apparently, it is to spell it. I have had millions of variations of pronunciations and spellings, especially in places where you give your name and they call it out at the end and you have no idea who they might be talking about because not one part of what they’re yelling resembles your name. But a two-letter nickname is much better than a double-barreled first name that everyone shortens to something that makes you itch. I was named after my great grandmother, who also must have had issues with our double-barreled first name since she went as ‘Nellie.’ Ironically, here in the South, double-barreled first names are the norm and nicknames like ‘ej’ for girls are not. But when I moved to America, not one teacher or kid in California would call me by my full name; try as I might to convince them in my very painfully shy way of wincing when they said it wrong. That isn’t to say, I didn’t have nickname amongst the kids. I just found my sixth grade yearbook and, apparently, for a brief time, I accepted Jell-O as a nickname. Can you imagine a grown woman introducing you to herself as “Jell-O” and not having questions about why? Anyway, when we switched schools from elementary to middle school, I took the plunge and actually spoke up on the first day of school and told my teachers to call me ‘ej’. Which was a huge undertaking for the weird accented African kid trying to not get noticed. It took some doing but two years later, most folk were calling me ‘ej’ and my butchered first name was left alone. Of course, you can’t have one name in school. Even if your name is a technically a nickname, it’s got to get it’s own nickname. I was ‘Edge’ – long before that dude from U2 appropriated it. (In fact, it’s what my mother calls me. Well, that and ‘daughter.’) One of my besties called me ‘eh-hje’ which is obviously my Spanish name. Some called me ‘e’ because apparently that ‘j’ was just too much of a mouthful. Anyway, yesterday I was doing a workshop with second graders at a school. “WHAT’S YOUR NAME?” they shouted when I walked in. Second graders only have one volume; Eleven. “What do you think my name is?” I asked and I pointed at the old city nametag attached to my shirt. "Eeee jay” said one kid. “Edge.” Said another. I laughed. The teacher called the kids to attention. Amused and thinking of happy childhood memories, I went back to getting my stuff together for the class. Two minutes later, I walked up to the front of the room and called the class up to participate with me and promptly got a chorus of excited second graders shouting out “YES, MRS. EDGE!” as they scrambled to the front. Happiness can be found in small things - like shouty second graders and old nicknames. (The part of me in this fascinating story will be played by Judy Dench. I really think she would bring it to life. I see Oscar all over it...)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorMy name is ej. I'm a girl. I say that because with the short hair and the short initials, folks aren't always sure. More brilliant insights to who I am in About me Archives
April 2019
Categories
All
|