I was reading Alane's post and was magically transported back to the 1st day of....well every grade, actually. Inevitably, (and remember in Junior High and High School you can do this eight times in one day) my teacher would read aloud : "Stephanie Mast-aaaan-dorea? Which was inevitably followed by my loud, annoyed monosyllabic correction, "Steve.". Later in life I learned there was a legitimate explanation for the recurrence; the last name comes first on the roll sheet and there is only a limited amount of space so what was actually on the sheet was "Mastandrea, Steph" What I find really shocking is is no one has yet mentioned the senseless and painful mangling of our ancestral surname. I have more academic awards with my name misspelled than I do correct. And these are just a few:
1. Mastendrea or Mastrandrea (these are the old standards)
2. Mastanora
3. Masterini
4. Hastandrea
5. Nastandrea
6. Mustandera
and the worse mangling ever award goes to the principal of Tottenville High School where the entire school of 6000 students heard the winner of the Award Excellence in AP American Government was "Stephen Masta--eh Masta--hana-fana." I was unfortunately seated next to Mark Ward who laughed so hard and so long he cried. And every so often Ill receieve a voice mail from him for "Steve Massanahanna". And they wonder why I'm mentally scarred.