Don't Call me Starlet!

image from Persephone Magazine

In a hideously embarrassing faux pas, designer & Project Runway All Stars judge Isaac Mizrahi mistakenly referred to genius contestant Austin Scarlett, as Austin Starlet (see the finale of Episode 7). Dear Austin has been known to be a bit of a drama queen, but in this case he was totally justified in snarkily correctly Mizrahi. There’s nothing worse than having someone get your name wrong, especially when it’s pretty simple to pronounce. Though, Austin really is a star, so maybe we’ll forgive Mizrahi his slip of the tongue.

After a lifetime of correcting people on how to pronounce my last name, I finally gave up when I realized that every single teacher in my highschool had pronounced my last name wrong (including one who had taught my father and uncles back in the dinosaur days) and the situation wasn’t likely to improve. The constant eye rolling, and piping up got to be too much of a hassle, so now I just let them sound like idiots. And they usually don’t enjoy being called out on their deficiencies infront of the class, when they’re just trying to get through roll-call.

But if people mis-spell my first name, then it’s a whole other story. Yes, my name is spelled “oddly” apparently, since it has an extra “i,”  but it can be a real hassle to get it changed on official documents if people spell it wrong. Which almost happened when I was getting my driver’s license and the woman the counter didn’t wait for me to spell my name out. She also didn’t ask me what colour my eyes were (they’re hazel, not brown), so that’s wrong on my driver’s license, but that’s not a sticking point when comparing official documents. Plus, having my name spelled a little differently means that I have another unique quality, that makes me “me.”  Not that I really need any extras, since I’ve been told that I’m far too much to handle :p