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On Being…DC. And Not D.C.
Who gets to decide what to call me?
Call me DC. Not Ishmael. Not D.C. And please not Dog Cat.
Most conversations with strangers on zoom or even irl begin with, “Is DC your real name?” Um…yeah. Sorry you don’t like it. Would you prefer to call me Ishmael? How about “Captain”?
For reasons I’ve yet to fathom, most spammers on LinkedIn reach out with “Hey Palter.” When I’m in a sarcastic mood (pretty much every time someone spams me on LinkedIn), I point out that addressing someone by their family name without an honorific is reserved for exclusive use by teen boys in the locker room, and ask why they greet strangers so rudely? Inevitably, they reply, “What should I call you?” If I tell them to call me Ishmael, alas, they don’t get the joke.
For a society that’s crazy sensitive to respecting personal pronouns, we’re rather cavalier about people’s proper nouns.
Nearly everyone feels required to ask, what does DC stand for? I tell them I stand for truth, justice, and the American way. Unless they grew up watching American television during the 1970’s, alas, they don’t get that joke, either. Coming up with jokes that nobody gets is this superman’s superpower.
When they insist that DC has to mean something, I tell them it’s short for District of Columbia…
