Wednesday, August 3, 2011

ASKING THE 'BIG' QUESTION

If you write non-fiction articles, chances are you interview people from time to time. There is one question that should never be forgotten. Yes, there is a universal question. You might wonder what question would fit any subject. Well, here goes.

"How do you spell your name?"

That's right. It is simple, but sometimes overlooked. We often take for granted the spelling of a common name, but we shouldn't. When a child is born, the parents want their precious baby to be unique. That leads to some very unusual ways to spell even the most common names.
Examples: John/Jon   Carol/Carole/Karole  Freddie/Freddy  Gary/Garry  Kathy/Cathy/Kathie   and the list goes on and on. Now just think of all the unusual names out there and the many ways to spell them.
 When a person sees his/her name in the newspaper or magazine, they want to see it spelled correctly.
That is my tip for today. It is not a small one, because every person you write about wants to see their name in print and they want to see it done right.

3 comments:

  1. Good point, Brenda. And sometimes the spelling of names is really weird. Like Brynda. I've noticed that people enjoy playing with name spelling these days.

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  2. I don't even know how to spell my own name. And I'm not kidding. I didn't have a copy of my birth certificate until I turned 55 and lo and behold I'd been spelling my own name wrong all that time.

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  3. When I am signing books I always ask for the spelling of the person's name. I have kept a list of the unusual ones. Some of them are really different.

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