A letter writer doesn’t want to hurt her friend, but she needs to put her straight about something.

Don’t put it off any longer, says our elder.

Dear EWC

How do you tell someone you’ve been friends with for almost three years that they’ve been spelling your name wrong this whole time?

Lawry replies

I would be happy to answer your letter. I know exactly what you are talking about as I have an unusual first name that is commonly misspelled and mispronounced. When it’s someone you care about you want them to get it right. Someone just the other day called me the wrong name and I quietly told her the right way and told her not to worry about it, as most people don’t get it right. She was fine with that.

I would simply tell her that you don’t know why you’ve waited so long, but you thought she would want to know, since you’re friends, how to spell your name. I would tell her that you kept putting it off because you didn’t want to embarrass her since it was your fault that you didn’t tell her when she first spelled it wrong. Tell her that she’s not alone — that everyone misspells it (I’m assuming they do.) I don’t think it will be a big problem. You can just apologize and then maybe change the subject and talk about something else.

I hope that this has been helpful to you, and I wish you a great deal of luck with the conversation. Think positive. I am a great believer in that.

I would love to hear how things work out.

Letter #: 405591
Category: Friendship