… as long as you spell the name right

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on December 11th, 2008

We’re perplexed.

We’re reminded of the time The Female Half of the Staff went to the local library and asked if she could find the library card– it was on file, behind the librarian’s desk– “How do you spell your name?” asked the librarian.

The Female Half spelled it. The librarian searched in vain for the card and, after about a minute, turned to The Female half and asked:

“Are you sure you’re spelling it right?”

Let’s let that sink in.

So, we’re perplexed when we see our upcoming appearances heralded on this comedy club’s website or that newspaper’s website and they seem to rarely spell the name correctly. (The Female Half’s name is the one that is more often mangled. The Male Half occasionally gets “Brain” instead of “Brian,” further fueling this “egghead comic” rumor.)

How, in this day and age of the internet and multiple-tab web browsers and all manner of technological wonders, does a man or woman who is charged with crashing the information into a comedy club website manage to misspell “Traci” and “Skene” so often and so thoroughly?

We caution that this is not an egomaniacal rant which, if left unchecked, will lead to contract riders that demand a case of room temperature San Pelligrino water in the green room. It’s merely an expression of wonderment at how a venue could not specify that whoever is looking after those things be a little more scrupulous when crashing in the names of the performers.

After all, one of those technological wonders out there is the search engine. You may have heard of Google– it’s one of the more popular ones. When competition for the entertainment dollar is fierce, it makes good business sense to get the names of the comedians right so that folks who search get to the desired destination.

Sure, we know that Google gently nudges searchers with their “Did you mean…?” feature, but we suspect that only works when the searchee is someone famous like Dave Attell or Ghandi. (And Google will do the same for Traci Skene! But, she is apparently ubiquitous enough on the internet that Google will do that for her.) (Editors note: And, as one of our readers has pointed out, Ghandi is spelled “Gandhi!” So, apparently, Google doesn’t even bother to ask if perhaps we’re mistaken by doing the ol’ “Did you mean Gandhi?” when you misspell his name correctly!)

But other folks aren’t so well networked.

All technology aside, dontcha think it’d be a good idea to spell the acts’ names correctly? Just for the heck of it?

(And while we’re at it, what is with all these comedy club websites that don’t even bother to list the supporting acts? Would it kill the webmaster to list the feature and/or the opener?)

We’re done.

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