{"id":1255,"date":"2010-10-17T12:30:31","date_gmt":"2010-10-17T01:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/?p=1255"},"modified":"2012-05-10T16:23:29","modified_gmt":"2012-05-10T06:23:29","slug":"their-names-are-precious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2010\/10\/their-names-are-precious\/","title":{"rendered":"Their names are precious"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Did you know that someone&#8217;s name is one of the most precious words to them?<\/p>\n<p>If you don&#8217;t believe me, think about how you feel when you are &#8216;treated like a number&#8217;, someone pronounces your name poorly and you get a letter with\u00a0your name wrong in some way.<\/p>\n<p>I once got a letter that referred to Mr T Hughes, opened with Tash and had Mrs Hughes on the envelope. I didn&#8217;t like being called Mr but the lack of care shown by the inconsistency was very poor.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Getting people&#8217;s names right is a sign of respect, and in business it also shows attention to detail matters to you<\/strong>. So consider the following tips:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"Do names matter?\" href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2007\/11\/do-names-matter\/\">check the spelling of someone&#8217;s name<\/a> before you send a letter or email &#8211; and use their spelling even if you don&#8217;t like it<\/li>\n<li>personalise where possible &#8211; if sending a letter or email, consider adding their name to the subject and\/or body as well as in the opening line<\/li>\n<li>think about what form to use &#8211; title and surname or just first name for instance will depend on your audience and\u00a0<a title=\"Branding\" href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2008\/02\/branding\/\">your business style<\/a>. Note if they have shown a preference for one style then make sure you use that style.<\/li>\n<li>if you are not sure of gender from the name, avoid using terms that indicate gender as getting it wrong can be offensive<\/li>\n<li>never make fun or joke about someone&#8217;s name, even if you think you have a friendship, unless they have done so first &#8211; even then I would hesitate before joking about their name<\/li>\n<li>wait to be invited to use a nickname or abbreviation. So many people meet a Michael or Jonathon and start saying Mike and Jon, but if Michael hates Mike it will not impress him at all. Besides, nicknames are personal and often reserved for friends<\/li>\n<li>ask how to pronounce their name if you are not sure &#8211; people don&#8217;t mind helping but may resent errors<\/li>\n<li>do your best to remember names, especially at networking events or if a client introduces you. There are many techniques for improving your name memory and it is a valuable skill to have<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>PS On a humorous note, I received a phone call a few days ago where the person asked &#8220;Is that Mr Tash Hughes&#8221; (badly pronounced)<br \/>\nI answered &#8220;No&#8221; thinking &#8211; do I really sound like a Mr?<br \/>\nNext question &#8220;Can I speak to Tash Hughes?&#8221;<br \/>\nMy answer &#8220;You are &#8211; I am Tash but I&#8217;m not Mr.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;Oh, I thought you were a boy, Goodbye&#8221; and hung up!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Did you know that someone&#8217;s name is one of the most precious words to them? If you don&#8217;t believe me, think about how you feel when you are &#8216;treated like a number&#8217;, someone pronounces your name poorly and you get a letter with\u00a0your name wrong in some way. I once got a letter that referred [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,1425,70],"tags":[222,164,203,1094,434,120],"class_list":["post-1255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bit-off-track","category-business-communications","category-grammar-details-2","tag-email","tag-letters","tag-names","tag-personalise","tag-pronounce","tag-spelling"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1255"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2955,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255\/revisions\/2955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}