My Very First Open Letter In Which The Bitterness Prevails

An Open Letter to All Those Who Cannot Be Fucking BOTHERED to Pronounce My Name Correctly,

I understand that my name is not necessarily normal, along the lines of the Kates and the Kellys, the Lucys and the Lauras. No, it does not come as naturally to you as that of Sarah or Sally, Bridget or Belinda. I know that. I apologise. If we have just met and I tell you my name, I fully expect you to have to say "er.. wha.. could you.. what was that there now?". I will happily repeat it, if you ask me to, as many times as you like.

Seriously. Even if we have been engaged in conversation for two hours, and we know all about each other, including our club feet, penchants for dwarves dressed as Michael Ball and our leagues of illegitimate children, I still won't mind if you lean towards me, embarrassed and a little flustered from your recent revelations and mumble that my name has escaped you for the fifth time this evening. I will repeat it again and again, until you get it right.

Lay-un-ie.

With the emphasis firmly heaped upon the first syllable.

LAY-un-ie.

Obvious? No, I admit it. Easy? YES. A tongue-twister it is not.


Because, as you know, it is spelt Léonie. Even taking into account the acute accent on the first e it still would be Lay-o-nie. But it isn't.

IT ISN'T. TRUST ME ON THIS.

Listen. Don't fucking argue with me. I know it doesn't make sense. It isn't spelt that way, you whine incessantly. I know this, and I distinctly remember telling you very clearly when you asked for the spelling that it WOULDN'T HELP. Oh, you said, nodding your head, I'll get it if you spell it for me. Despairing and on the verge of defeat, I told you.

OH! You cry, relieved at the clarification.

Lee-O-nie!

As if, hang on, Lee-O-nie is so THICKY THICK THICK that she has spent TWENTY-THREE YEARS pronouncing her OWN FUCKING NAME WRONG!

No.

It is, I say, resisting the somewhat overwhelming urge to rip your head off and serve your brain up with a nice chianti, not actually pronounced like that, though. I swallow. This is one of those moments in which it becomes sorely obvious to me that I am not Wolverine from X-Men, because if I was I would have steel claws protruding from my knuckles ready for some serious avenge-based action.

I am just little old Léonie, Lay-un-ie, Lay-on-me (and I will if you think it might help).
No claws of steel here.

I had teachers at school who called me the wrong name every day for seven long years. Throughout university tutors and fellow students alike called me Lee-O-nie, day in, day out. I have played in orchestras, been in plays, sung in choirs, worked in bars, offices, factories, shops, events teams. And mostly, you know, mostly people work it out after a couple of days. But there are inevitably a few that just cannot be bothered. You can hear the words that come out of your mouth, can't you? Good. Now, can you hear you're saying something that sounds a bit bloody different to the word other people are saying? Can you? Come on. Of course you can.

But you don't care. You, who swoop down on me at a social gathering, gushing with joy to see me, and trill delightedly (whilst looking over my shoulder to see if any other miserable fucker you could pounce upon has wandered into the room) "Hiiiiii!!!!!!! Leee-OOOOOO-nie!!!!! How are you? (pause for air-kiss on both cheeks) How ARE you? Soooo nice to see you..." and sweep off leaving me mumbling furiously to myself. I've TOLD you. Other people have told you.

If you don't bother to learn my name I have to assume you are an idiot. Because it's not rocket science. It's three syllables. Fuck it, you can call me Lé if you're really struggling. I don't MIND if you don't get it straight away, and as I have mentioned I will repeat it until you can get it. But if you don't CARE?

It's insulting.

And I shall have to refer to you as Knob-Knocker everytime I see you from now on.

So there.

Lots of love

(come on now, say it with me now...)

Léonie xx