Author Topic: Is this a classic example of looking for a reason to be insulted?  (Read 1671 times)

Hmmm

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The third letter in Miss Manners is from a woman who's husband's good friend is getting married. She says she the bride is someone she has "never been comfortable with; something about her did not feel right." She does not give any other specifics about the relationship.

The invitation to the wedding arrives and the husband's name is spelled correctly but her first and last name is misspelled. She is taking it as a personal insult and doesn't want to attend the wedding. The husband did reach out to his friend who first replied that it wasn't "his lane" but after further exchanges offered to have a new invite sent.

http://never been comfortable with; something about her did not feel right.

I personally agreed with Miss Manners that she doubted the bride was gleefully intentionally misspelling her name (and later points out the letter writer made 2 grammatical errors in her letter and asked if Miss Manners should see that as an insult.)

Would anyone be so upset by a name misspelling that they'd request a new invitation or go to the extreme of refusing to attend?

You just know these 2 men's friendship will be growing apart which is sad.

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Rose Red

The LW doesn't sound like she wants to be friendly with the bride so the bride may not know the spelling and went with the most common.

Yes, I'm aware you should call up and ask, but I wouldn't be surprised if the bride was afraid to call them up since I doubt the LW hid her dislike as well as she probably thought (maybe she didn't even hide her coldness at all)! At least the invitation didn't say "Joe Smith and Guest" ;). As for why he groom didn't call up his friend to ask? It's not his lane ::)  >:(.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2020, 11:56:19 am by Rose Red »

Winterlight

Is this the link?

Letter 3

Given that the LW doesn't actually provide any reason for her attitude towards the bride, I tend to feel like she's looking for a reason not to go. "someone I have never been comfortable with; something about her did not feel right." reads like vaguebooking to me. If she had a solid complaint like "Bride has repeatedly snubbed me because we aren't able to take expensive vacations" or something, that would be different.
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Pandorica

I think it's extremely unlikely that the misspelling is anything but an honest mistake.  Maybe there's more to the background with the bride, but with the information given, it's hard to see a deliberate insult.

TBH, I would probably be slightly insulted, but not to the "not coming to your event" level. It's easy enough to make mistakes when you're hand addressing things. 
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Rose Red

I wonder what her name is. We have a whole thread about "uneek" name spellings.

I might be insulted if she misspelled "Jane Smith," but more understanding if it was misspelled because the LW's name is "Jaiynnee Smthyth." ;D
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TootsNYC

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I have a name that is often misspelled--both of them.
I don't take it personally.

I also didn't take my husband's last name, and yet people in his family are always writing "Mrs. and Mrs. Bill Smith" on invidations, seating cards, and mailing envelopes.

Many, many of them used to use some odd phonetic spelling for my first name, which isn't the world's most common but is also phonetically simple.

And almost none of them can spell my last name.
And none of them ever asked me to be clear about how to spell my name.

Some people are just like that.

So no, I would never get that insulted.
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jpcher

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Nope. I wouldn't feel insulted.

What I might do is clearly sign my name on the card I gift so that when the BC writes TYnotes, the name is right there in front of them.

Or is that PA since a second invite was already sent out with correct spelling? What if a second invite wasn't sent, would that still be PA?
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Bada

I have a hard to spell first and last name (married into the latter, unfortunately). I definitely get frustrated when people who should know better spell my name wrong...but I'd never say anything to a busy Bride about that! I've only ever mentioned it in work situations really--or recently to tease a friend who sent me two pieces of mail the same day, one with my name spelled perfectly and one seriously butchered, lol.

Honestly, I'm pretty sure I spelled my friend's name wrong on her invite to my wedding. It's Jackie, but I tried to guess the formal spelling (Jacquelyn?). In retrospect I should have asked her if that even IS her legal name. But we were in a massive rush to get the invites out and I just sent it.  Fortunately she didn't complain and she still came and we had a blast!

In short, the letter writer is odd for being so bothered. Bur she's well matched since her husband thought it was worth a back and forth email exchange resulting in a new invite being issued.
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chigger

Looking to be offended! However, I do think it's a troll letter, because who gets so hot and bothered over something so petty? It's her partners friend, not hers, and to make a stink big enough that the happy couple would send a new invitation is just bonkers! Unless, she meant to say "rescind" the invitation. Which I think would be more in line!

Dazi

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No, if she wanted to insult her, the bride would have addressed it to husband first and last name and guest.

I know when we got married, there were several guests from my husband's list who I had no damn idea how to spell their names and neither did he when I asked!
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gramma dishes

Looking to be offended! However, I do think it's a troll letter, because who gets so hot and bothered over something so petty? It's her partners friend, not hers, and to make a stink big enough that the happy couple would send a new invitation is just bonkers! Unless, she meant to say "rescind" the invitation. Which I think would be more in line!

Yes!   As I was reading it I also thought "I wonder if she meant resend or did she really mean rescind?"   Rescinding the invitation altogether would actually make more sense in the context of the sentence!

shadowfox79

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I have a first name which has multiple correct spellings, and have spent my entire life spelling my name (first and last) for people. This wouldn't even register for me.

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Soop

My answer to the subject question is 'yes', maybe unless the topic of spelling of name has been discussed previously with the bride/groom. But only maybe.

I think the 2nd question in the link is even more looking for a reason to be insulted. I hope the letter writer has a string of pearls to clutch for those times they see the conductor wearing a cummerbund. I know/care so little about formal wear I wouldn't even notice.

Hmmm

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Looking to be offended! However, I do think it's a troll letter, because who gets so hot and bothered over something so petty? It's her partners friend, not hers, and to make a stink big enough that the happy couple would send a new invitation is just bonkers! Unless, she meant to say "rescind" the invitation. Which I think would be more in line!

Yes!   As I was reading it I also thought "I wonder if she meant resend or did she really mean rescind?"   Rescinding the invitation altogether would actually make more sense in the context of the sentence!

I don't think the plan was to disinvite the husband and wife. I figured it went (basing on how my DH and his best friend of 20 years ago would have communicated if texting had been around):
Bro, the invite has wife's name misspelled
Sorry, I didn't send them, not my lane
Well, wife is taking it as a personal attack.
Dude, it's just a mistake!
She's wanting to skip the wedding. You know she already doesn't feel comfortable with your fiance
Well, WTH do you want? For us to send another invite????? It's just an envelope!
Yeah, send another invite if you would. Maybe she'll drop it then.

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TootsNYC

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No, if she wanted to insult her, the bride would have addressed it to husband first and last name and guest.


Back when I wrote the wedding etiquette column, I had a colleague whose partner received an invitation like that from one of his friends--and the colleague and her partner were close to the bride & groom!

When the partner called his friend to ask about why his live-in long-time girlfriend's name was not on the invitation, and to say that he was offended and upset about it, the groom said their wedding planner or stationery person had been ADAMANT that unmarried people's names were to be treated this way.

I made a column out of it. Basically saying, "if you're the bride/groom, don't do this. But if you get something like this, try to cut them some slack--B&G's get a lot of people confidently insisting they do completely inconsiderate things."
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