Ann Cutler, er Coulter

November 27, 2006

Ann Coulter

For years I’ve been struggling against the general inability of people to spell my last name correctly. On this list are teachers, politicians, business people and worst of all credit bureaus. I guess the people who you buy something from or are beholden to for 19.7% interest should probably be most attentive when it comes to accuracy in their records. After all, we’re entrusting them to be correct when they slap up the finance charges we owe or when they monkey with our future purchasing power.

Even today this issue frustrated me. I called the frequent flyer desk at AirTran Airways to see why they weren’t crediting me with numerous trips to and from Florida. The way Moesha in the phone center tells it, “Our name fields don’t accept middle names.”

Well isn’t that a fine how-do-you-do? All I use is my middle name.

This certainly causes some issues when I have to travel internationally because my passport has all my names on it. And it’s not as difficult to spell as goshandgollysquakatieiskindandgentle. But other than my birth certificate and passport, I go by my middle name and relegate my first name to either an initial or I drop it all together.

The reason I don’t use my first name isn’t out of country-club attitude. It’s because my father and I have the same name and were born only 25 years and one day apart. That often meant in the past that his credit was put on my credit report – and worse, my college spending-spree credit showed up on his.

So, after fighting with Chevron for five years to convince them that the gas card opened in 1967 wasn’t mine because I was only two and the only thing I was driving was my mother crazy, I finally found a way to manage the name issue. But that’s only the first name.

As hard as it is to believe, the last name Cutler isn’t that difficult to spell. But look at Ann Cutler – the so-called journalist. She spells it Coulter. And how about the legions of people that spell it Culter? Shouldn’t there be a “t” before “l” rule in the dictionary. Or perhaps in Wikipedia.

Maybe it’s mountains and molehills, but you don’t see people messing up Blil Cilnot’s name or Gegroe Buhs’ name. Then there’d be a backlash.

More to come…