"You can call me Katie" & TINSTAC
This morning I went for a pamper session (stiff lower back = 1 hour massage & had my hair coloured - aka getting my roots "done"). The salon (because they're not just hairdressers anymore) has recently employed a new massage therapist, Katie, who everyone has been raving about, so I thought, "why not?".
Katie, it turns out, is from India, has been a massage therapist for a while, moved to Australia about 18 months ago on a training visa, & much like anyone who emigrates has moved from her home in the hope of a better life for her and her children. When asked what "Katie" was short for (she could have been a Katherine), Katie looks a little embarrassed and says "Deepti".
We had a conversation about why she changed her name to Katie and apparently her cousin suggested that Australians would struggle with her name (!). She asked me what name I went by and I said "Tanuja". My close friends shorten it, and for the most part I will respond to most things, as long as I'm asked first. But at no point have I thought about either anglicising it or allowing people to anglicise it for me. (As the delivery room nurse tried to do - not a smart move on her part, to tell a woman in labour, who has already told you her name twice, that you will call her Tania, "because Tanuja is too hard" Fortunately for her health, tigerbeard stepped in and corrected her in a manner which informed her that there would be no argument, without actually slapping her across the face with a wet fish.)
I have pointed out to her that at worst her name would be pronounced slightly differently, because there are sounds in Hindi & Punjabi that do not exist in English and if she wants to be called by her real name rather than one she's picked to make it easier for a handful of people, then now is the time to do it. I also pointed out that if she wanted to be called Katie, then that was also her choice, but that the choice should be hers and hers alone.
To comply with msb66's law that there is no such thing as coincidence (TINSTAC), tigerbeard and I were talking about some of the issues that the Indian contracters were having with the Aussies and tigerbeard was trying to work out how tell his work colleagues how rude & unaccommodating some of them have been, when he came across this gem from "Goodness Gracious Me". Enjoy!
Katie, it turns out, is from India, has been a massage therapist for a while, moved to Australia about 18 months ago on a training visa, & much like anyone who emigrates has moved from her home in the hope of a better life for her and her children. When asked what "Katie" was short for (she could have been a Katherine), Katie looks a little embarrassed and says "Deepti".
We had a conversation about why she changed her name to Katie and apparently her cousin suggested that Australians would struggle with her name (!). She asked me what name I went by and I said "Tanuja". My close friends shorten it, and for the most part I will respond to most things, as long as I'm asked first. But at no point have I thought about either anglicising it or allowing people to anglicise it for me. (As the delivery room nurse tried to do - not a smart move on her part, to tell a woman in labour, who has already told you her name twice, that you will call her Tania, "because Tanuja is too hard" Fortunately for her health, tigerbeard stepped in and corrected her in a manner which informed her that there would be no argument, without actually slapping her across the face with a wet fish.)
I have pointed out to her that at worst her name would be pronounced slightly differently, because there are sounds in Hindi & Punjabi that do not exist in English and if she wants to be called by her real name rather than one she's picked to make it easier for a handful of people, then now is the time to do it. I also pointed out that if she wanted to be called Katie, then that was also her choice, but that the choice should be hers and hers alone.
To comply with msb66's law that there is no such thing as coincidence (TINSTAC), tigerbeard and I were talking about some of the issues that the Indian contracters were having with the Aussies and tigerbeard was trying to work out how tell his work colleagues how rude & unaccommodating some of them have been, when he came across this gem from "Goodness Gracious Me". Enjoy!
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