I’m accustomed to my name being misspelled/miswritten in various ways (Kristin, Christen, Christian, Kirsten, Krystin, Kristine), but I got the most severe misspelling of my whole life this past weekend: Chusen. HOW DID THAT EVEN HAPPEN? I wish I’d saved the Taco Bell receipt so I could prove it. I’m going to assume that was more of a fumble-fingered scramble-up (whoops, forgot the R; whoops, hit the U-key instead of the I-key next to it; whoops, forgot the T; you know what, never mind, I’ll just bring the tray to the table rather than call a name) than someone’s actual guess at the spelling of Kristen.
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Quite possibly you already know this next thing, but I did not. You know how when you’re filling out your address on an online form, you can do it by tabbing and typing and not using the mouse at all—until you get to a pull-down menu? You can type the first letter of your title/state/province/country/suffix, but if that brings you to the wrong one, I thought we had to use the mouse to scroll to the right one. But it turns out that if you type the first letter AGAIN, it gives you ANOTHER of the options starting with that letter! And so on, until you get the right one! So you don’t have to use the mouse after all! I don’t know if it always does this, but I’ve done two online forms since discovering it, and it’s worked for both, so that is a good sign.
Paul claimed to already know this, and in fact he gave me the “EVERYONE knows this but I am being kind to you by not saying so” look, which I find excruciatingly annoying—especially because I suspect of him of sometimes NOT knowing something but PRETENDING to know it so that I won’t be the one telling him something he didn’t know. (This is one of the potential issues when two firstborns get married.) (Or possibly it is one of the potential issues when two PEOPLE get married.) (Or possibly it is one of the potential issues when someone marries PAUL.) And also annoying because if he DID know, why didn’t he rush to tell ME the way I rushed to tell HIM?
I love it when forms do that! For the drop-down lists, after or instead of typing the first letter, you can also using the up and down arrows to scroll through list options – even faster!
I’ve had some crazy receipt misspellings, but that one is still something special.
My name is Tess, but I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten “Teff” What is the with the double
“F”‘s? I always wonder if people named “Jess” have this same problem, but at least Jeff is a real name.
I did know about the hitting the letter again in the drop down, but I thank you for telling me anyway. :)
ohh, also I wanted to add that I am third out of four and my husband is an only child, so that leads to confilcts of its own. I am used to sharing, and comprimise and he is used to getting his way…
Ugh, this is exactly my situation too. Many times I have silently cursed his parents for not having more kids or at filling his life with annoying cousins he had to wrestle for resources with.
I usually just type the second letter if the first doesn’t pull it up, and that usually works too, if there’s not a long pause between the two. Sometimes I’ll have to start over if the second letter brings me to the things that start with the second letter. And like Ruthie said, the arrow up and down keys work too, and then you continue on your merry tabbing way!
I am also a first-born and am absolutely like Paul when my husband tries to tell me something I already know or show me something I’ve already seen, for what it’s worth.
My name gets misspelled all the time but I can’t say that it’s every happened in such spectacular fashion as you just described. That is impressive. The worst I’ve ever had was “Tracy” and I think that’s because someone didn’t understand my country accent not because they couldn’t spell…
I did know you could fill out forms without the mouse but I thought people that used the mouse just preferred that. I try to tell my husband it would be faster to just tab and he continues to use the mouse anyway….
I am choosing to believe that someone thought that was the ACTUAL spelling – mainly because I can’t see how it could have been a fat fingers misstype. And I have mistyped about ten of the words in this comment so far, so I was fully behind TRYING to believe it was a typing error. Anyway. I am shaking my head sadly at the state of the world. Or at least the state/s of naming/spelling/naming-spelling.
I don’t think anyone has ever misspelled my name. Some of my friends have entire facebook albums dedicated to pictures of people misspelling their name on Starbucks cups or Panera receipts etc. I’m kind of jealous because it looks like fun, except also not.
I didn’t know about hitting the same letter again. I usually tab, first letter, and then use the down arrow key to get to what I want.
Did you see all the birth order talk on Twitter, too? It surprised me how many of us are firstborns married to firstborns. (I’m one, too!) I don’t know if there’s just a large enough sample size on Twitter that of course there were going to be a few? Or there are more firstborns who blog and some are also married to firstborns? Or…who knows.
And, like everyone else said, I type the first letter of my state, then use the down arrow on my keyboard to get to the correct one. I actually did not know you could keep typing the first letter:) I probably won’t switch, though. Too set in my ways!
My name was once written on a Chinese take-out receipt as Sarolar. That…is a lot different than Sara. Aside from the usual name misspellings, I get Sharon a lot. Don’t ask me why.
I did know about the drop-down trick, but I think it’s great that you let everyone else know.
My name is spelled wrong 90% of the time…which is fine. It’s an unusual name, I get it. But I love the way people try and pronounce it. That’s where all my fun stories come from…and no typing problems to blame it on. My all time favorites were 1) person read my nametag and called me “Gazebo” and a few years earlier in a school roll call “Jerome”. Yah, g-i-s-e-l-l-e really looks like it would be pronounced that way…good effort?
I think if that is one of the potential issues when someone marries Paul, then we need to add that it’s not really just Paul. It’s also Leo — this happens in our house all the time. So much so that I finally told him point-blank that even if he knows the thing already, he is to feign surprise and delight when I tell him about it so that I don’t feel like a twerp for not having known it before (and so that I don’t contemplate spousicide because he didn’t tell me about it when he found out).
I did not know that about the drop-down menu! I usually use the arrows to scroll to my choice, but now I have another option!
My husband is a first-born and I am a second-born, but *I* am the one who typically gives *him* the “EVERYONE already knows that” face. But probably I only give it to him because I had to spend the first half of my life with my first-born brother, who knows everything there is to know, so until leaving home I was always on the receiving end of it.
I did NOT know that about drop-down menus, and am looking forward to trying it the next time I have to enter my state.
I don’t often have problems with people spelling my name wrong, though a major newspaper once printed my byline as either “Holey” or “Holy,” instead of “Holly”.
People often mistakenly call me Julie, which makes me SEE RED.
I have memorized how many times I have to hit the “M” to get to Minnesota on those drop down menus. It is very handy (your hands don’t need to leave home row on the keyboard!). But I appreciate you sharing that information here even though I knew it because most of the time I DON’T know the information you are sharing.
I’m a first born married to a first born, and there are a lot of those looks exchanged both ways in our house.
The typing thing works for number drop down boxes too, so for a birthday drop-down box you can hit D to bring up December and then tab-one-one-one to get to 12. Each time you hit one, it goes to the next number that starts with one, just like it’d go to the next entry of a particular letter.
I am also a first-born married to a first-born. (Knowing nod.)
I didn’t know that!
Also, best misspelling ever was Nickall
I did not know that trick about the drop down menus! Thank you very much for sharing that information. :-) One reason I was glad to move from Missouri to Kansas, was not having to use the mouse on those menus since Kansas is the first K state. Well, and my family is here, but whatever.
The worst misspelling of my name was Anglea instead of Angela. What made it the worst was that I misspelled my own name in an art project, where the object of the project was to draw block letters that looked three dimensional. I worked on the project for several days, trying to get the letters to look just right, and then just as I was going to turn it in, I realized that I had spelled my own name wrong. Genius.
My favorite misspelling of my name, ever: Jynger. I don’t even know. I get that Ginger isn’t a super common name, but it’s not totally unused–gingerbread! ginger ale! ginger! I…am flabbergasted.
Ginger, that’s amazing. Who doesn’t know how to spell Ginger?
I knew the no-mouse move when filling out forms, but not the double-first letter trick. I do like to act like I already know about something my husband is telling me when I don’t, but only when the thing is so random and weird that there is no way I would have known. Then we laugh and laugh.
I love this so much. I am going to do this to my husband at the next possible opportunity.
I’ve had my name misspelled as Rubby before, and to make matters worse I could see that they had originally written Rubbie and then wrote a y really dark over the “ie” part when they realized it wasn’t right. I’ve also had it spelled Robim, and it was handwritten on a Starbucks cup so I know it wasn’t just a typo or anything. (That was in a non-English-speaking country, though, so I’ll cut them some slack.)
I didn’t know the double letter drop down menu trick…and I suspect Paul didn’t either.
Tsk tsk. ;)
My last name is always, ALWAYS spelled and pronounced wrong. But the one that confuses me the most – I answer the phone at work, “XYZ, this is ABC (insert my real name here).” And invariably I hear, “Hello, Nancy….”
My name sounds NOTHING like Nancy.
I won’t tell you that I knew I about the drop down menu thing. ;-)
Has anyone told you about several “shortcuts” that you can use on a pc keyboard?
You just changed my whole life with the drop-down menu information. I live in MIssouri, which is like the 18th M-state on those menus, and I seriously have to fill out address forms for customers at work 5 or 6 times every day, which I fly through until I get to the Missouri part. So tomorrow I shall just type M 18 times. Actually now that I think about it, I just type M and then use the down arrow to get to MO. Well, this will be more fun, I’m sure.
My husband taught me that repeat-letter trick a few years ago and it blew. my. mind. Not sure why I was so impressed but I was. So…uh…sorry I didn’t tell you about it sooner! I figured I was the last to know, as usual.
PS My name is so commonly butchered by folks who write names on things that I just say my name is Jen. It’s not, but they can at least spell Jen.
My name is Rebecca, and my parents sometimes use Becky, though I never do. However, one of their friends gave me a Christmas present when I was maybe eight, and addressed it to “Bakery”. And this was someone that KNEW ME.
????????
Sometimes in drop-down menus, you can also just keep typing the name and it works. So, for example, if you live in New Hampshire, you can type “n-e-w-h” (for long form names) or “N-H” (for acronyms) and it will select New Hampshire. However, sometimes this does not work, for reasons that elude me.
I live in Washington, DC, which is a pain and a half when filling out online forms, because if the menu is long form, it can either be “District of Columbia” or “Washington, DC” (which makes NO SENSE if I have already filled in the city, but this nonetheless HAPPENS, a lot. My partner does not understand the rage I feel at this, so thank you for letting me yell about it here. It’s very cathartic). So typing “D” can sometimes lead to nothing but “Delaware”, whereas typing “W” right away could lead to accidentally choosing the STATE of Washington, where I do not live.
“Or possibly it is one of the potential issues when two PEOPLE get married.” How Swistlesque! And how true.
I did not know about the drop down trick; been using the down arrow. Thank you.
Love this story. I knew about the drop down trick and typing the letter, but I found out by accident. I’m glad you shared it, because I never did. I was embarrassed because I thought it was something everyone already knew and I would feel dumb sharing it!
I immediately thought of “Chanandler Bong” from the Friends episode where the girls compete against the boys. (it’s the name on the TV guide)
I use microsoft shortcuts all the time. I think it’s a lost skill so it’s just Paul & I being nerdy. :)
I live in Texas and I can’t tell you how many times my mail has been addressed to Hector. Hector Undeniablyscottishlastname.
Worst misspelling was at Starbucks though. And you know it wasn’t a mistype at Starbucks where things are hand-written. I give you: Hagor. If I’d thought about it I would have taken a picture.
As a Jemima, I’m totally used to my name being misspelled (Jemimah, Gemima, and Jemma are some of the better guesses) but my Starbucks experience last week was ridiculous. After spelling my name out slowly, TWICE, I received a cappucino for “Gamama”. I was SO CONFUSED.