“Erin… is it Cronk? Crownce? Crounce? Cronkee? Curonikey?”
The level of my frustration never quite reached the level of my humiliation when my face turned cherry red as somebody attempted to pronounce my last name. Everybody’s gaping eyes would curiously stare at me and wonder why I had such an unusual title. I envied my peers with conventional, smoothly pronounced last names. Why couldn’t I be Erin Jones, Erin Smith, or Erin Johnson?
I never gave an ounce of appreciation to my name until I was twelve years old at my registration for club swim team.
The first rustle of autumn leaves in September peacefully calmed me as I entered the stuffy but spacious pool area. A stern-looking man with a beard approached us to read over my registration and examined it for five uneasy minutes before he finally began to speak. …show more content…
“It’s Cronce,” I corrected, annoyed but trying to keep my voice steady.
The stern-looking man with the beard started to laugh, his harsh demeanor fading away as I started to appreciate his warm sense of humor. “Sorry, I’m Italian,” he lightheartedly declared.
I stifled a laugh myself. Nobody had ever apologized for mispronouncing my name before, let alone cheerfully turned their mistake into a joke.
A week later, I sensed the familiarity of the pool as I arrived for the first day of practice, chaotic with hundreds of little kids running around and coaches trying to control them. As I leisurely sauntered over to my practice group, I barely heard my coach as he called, “Hey Crunchy.”
After looking behind and all around me, I confusedly stared back at my new coach, wondering who he meant to address, or whether I even heard him correctly. Whose name is Crunchy, anyway?
But he stared right back at me, and I realized. My coach was playing off his pronunciation mistake.
I am
The level of my frustration never quite reached the level of my humiliation when my face turned cherry red as somebody attempted to pronounce my last name. Everybody’s gaping eyes would curiously stare at me and wonder why I had such an unusual title. I envied my peers with conventional, smoothly pronounced last names. Why couldn’t I be Erin Jones, Erin Smith, or Erin Johnson?
I never gave an ounce of appreciation to my name until I was twelve years old at my registration for club swim team.
The first rustle of autumn leaves in September peacefully calmed me as I entered the stuffy but spacious pool area. A stern-looking man with a beard approached us to read over my registration and examined it for five uneasy minutes before he finally began to speak. …show more content…
“It’s Cronce,” I corrected, annoyed but trying to keep my voice steady.
The stern-looking man with the beard started to laugh, his harsh demeanor fading away as I started to appreciate his warm sense of humor. “Sorry, I’m Italian,” he lightheartedly declared.
I stifled a laugh myself. Nobody had ever apologized for mispronouncing my name before, let alone cheerfully turned their mistake into a joke.
A week later, I sensed the familiarity of the pool as I arrived for the first day of practice, chaotic with hundreds of little kids running around and coaches trying to control them. As I leisurely sauntered over to my practice group, I barely heard my coach as he called, “Hey Crunchy.”
After looking behind and all around me, I confusedly stared back at my new coach, wondering who he meant to address, or whether I even heard him correctly. Whose name is Crunchy, anyway?
But he stared right back at me, and I realized. My coach was playing off his pronunciation mistake.
I am