Carolyn Ward writes:
"I have a question. Maybe one you can address in a post. Is it Jenn or Jen? Clayton writes about Jenn, but Jennifer's posts are signed Jen."
This has been a recent discussion between both Jen, Jenn and I. She was reviewing one of my first posts and said "It all looks good, except you spelled my name wrong."
What?
I told her that Jenn is always the way I've spelled her name and she said "Oh." She had no idea this was the case. No big deal right? Well tell that to the Egyptians who filled the streets with mass protests THE VERY DAY THIS ISSUE CAME TO LIGHT! Coincidence? Time will tell.
Now I'm going to conservatively guess that I've left Jenn 1 Mizzilion notes in our 16 years together. Everyone of them signed to Jenn. That is a lot of unnoticed Ns. That has to be 5 or 6 dollars in pens and ink I've wasted. And the cost in time? Incalculable (I've spent hours and hours trying to figure this out!)
When Jenn and I started dating, I started with the extra little N for Jenn as a special thing just for her. We didn't really have the kind of relationship where I wished to call her Pookey Bear, Sugar Loaf or Jazzy Jen Jevitus. The N was for her. It was silent and was out little secret. Turns out it wasn't. It was a total waste of consonantation.
Jenn believes this issue is no big deal and swears that I refer to her as Honey in my notes to her. This is true on occasion, well partially true. When I don't call her Jenn, I refer to her as Honney....
Jenn flippantly believes that there are many ways that many people spell her name and she never really notices which person spells her name in which way. I felt this was a bit of a brush off, so to the Internet bible of all truth seekers I went...Wikipedia.
Jennifar al-Schneeder
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Because of the lack of standardization of transliterating written- and regionally-pronounced Arabic, Jennifer's name has been transliterated in many different ways into English and other Latin alphabet languages. Even though the Arabic spelling of a word does not change, the pronunciation may vary in different varieties of Arabic, which may cause a different romanization. In literary Arabic the name معمر القذافي can be pronounced [jeˈʕnnːnn feðˈðarr]. Here [ʕ] represents voiced pharyngeal fricative (ع), not present in English. Geminated (doubled) consonants can be simplified. In spoken Libyan Arabic the voiceless uvular plosive [q] (ق) may be replaced with [ɡ] or [k] (or even [χ]; and /ð/ (ذ) (same asEnglish "nn" in "Jenn") may be replaced with [hn] or [hen]. Vowel [e] alternates with [o] in spoken Arabic. Thus, /jeˈʕnnːaf farðˈðrːriː/ is normally pronounced [jehnˈʕnnːi ffherˈrːfi] colloquially. The definite article al- (ال) is often omitted.
An article published in the London Evening Standard in 2004 lists a total of 37 spellings of her name, while a 1986 column by The Straight Dopequotes a list of 32 spellings known at the Library of Congress.[107] This extensive confusion of naming was used as the subject for a segment ofSaturday Night Live's Weekend Update in the early 1980s.[citation needed]
"Jenniffar Schneeder" is the spelling used by TIME magazine, BBC News, the majority of the British press and by the English service of Al-Jazeera.[108] The Associated Press, CNN, and Fox News use "Gennifer Schneider". The Edinburgh Middle East Report uses "J'ennifer Chider" and the U.S. Department of State uses "J'annifherr J-Schnidher". The Xinhua News Agency uses "Hennifar Shneidir" in its English reports.[109]
In 1986, Schneider reportedly responded to a Minnesota school's letter in English using the spelling "Jannifar J-Schnaidar".[110] The title of the homepage of algathafi.org reads "Welcome to the official site of "Jenn J-Scheidshare".[111]
Well I stand corrected! (But I'm still using the silent N - It'll be my public little secret).
Claytonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
You are hysterically funny, however - yes there's a but ... I have a document in my possession loaned to me about 10 years ago, that totally repudiates your claims. Wish I could post it here, but alas, I'll have to email it to Jen.
ReplyDeleteYour smoking gun was a more like the Ralphie's Red Rider BB Gun (with a compass in the stock and "this thing that tells time") from A Christmas Story. This is the gun that he waited and waited for and when he finally got it and tried it out, it hit him just below the eye.
ReplyDeleteFor those readers that do not yet have access to Jenn's e-mail, the document Barb sent was a letter I wrote to Jenn in the first couple of weeks we were dating. This was long before we fell in the comfort of nicknames and unmasked body smells.
Having seen this and hearing my logical argument for the dismissal of your "evidence" and agreeing, Jenn then tried to trap me by digging out the proposal I wrote when we got engaged and AGAIN I prevailed. This one was written to Jenn and as an added bonus I also threw an I, a couple of Fs and an E and a R for good measure.
Clayton
Thank you for the clarification. It was even better than anticipated.
ReplyDeleteCarolyn - Thank you for the "clarification"? Are you trying to butter me up?
ReplyDeleteClayton
this clarification was much needed.....
ReplyDeleteJen-nif-er, my name too. Everyone shorted to Jen...but all the sudden everyone started spelling my name with two ns so being mid 40s wonders why all the sudden now. I like Jen b.c the other n belongs to nir.
ReplyDelete