"It can stop you from voting, destroy your dental appointments, make it difficult to rent a car or book a flight, even interfere with your college exams."
You'd think that a little apostrophe wouldn't be so troublesome. But apparently, there are a multitude of possible gliches: names with hyphens, spaces, any convention that the software programmer wasn't astute enough to foresee, names like O'Connor, Al-Hussein, and Van Heusen are typical of those who slip into the black hole of name purgatory, never to be seen again.
The problem is more than human error, it depends on the databases and the way the software programs each treat various alphabet quirks.
In the article "Apostrophes Can Be Big Trouble" some victims of computer name abuse just bow to the failures of technology and give up the historically correct spelling of their names.
D'Angelo becomes Dangelo. Some how that diminishes the romance of the name, doesn't it?
2 comments:
Hi Marley! I'm back home from the NOLA Stars conference, and it was such a pleasure meeting you!
I do hope you'll drop by and say hello at my blog sometime, or even send an email. :)
Oh, gosh, almost forgot! I have quite a few pictures up of the conference on my blog and more to come. I had such a great time. :)
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