Friday, December 21, 2007

Uma, Oprah, Terreece...

What's in a name? In my case - several r's and e's. And no one seems to get it right. Print articles, Web sites, and photo captions all take liberties with my government name. Sure it's difficult, but how difficult is it when I spell it out for you? Write it out for you?

In a business where your name is your business my name is get the business end of the screw. When I'm Googled I need all of my work to show up right then. Clients won't be inclined to look for variations of my name on the off chance that someone's messed it up.

I just recently appeared in an article for a site I write movie reviews for: Kids-in-Mind.Com. Actually, I was just in the photo of the reviewers, nevertheless, good press - great press. And they got my name wrong.

I remember watching Oprah one day - isn't that what all freelancers do? Eat bon bons and watch Oprah? Anyway, she was talking about how people use to tell her to change her name because no one would ever remember Oprah. She didn't and I'm not.

It's T-E-R-R-E-E-C-E- M. C-L-A-R-K-E. It's not that hard, just double check your text, your sources, your notes for heaven's sake. I spell it out very nicely. I'm good at it, been doing it for 30 years.

By the way my husband apologizes monthly for passing on a last name that added yet another 'e' to my repetoire. For getting him, it's an easy trade. :0)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Terreece,

I'm glad I found your blog. It's nice to meet another Black female mommy blogger. I look forward to reading more. Your blog is easy to read. I found you because we're blogging for Babies Online, and you just took the topic I wanted (I read your post about competitiveness :) )

Visit my blog when you get a chance too. I'll be bookmarking this site for sure!

Oh, and your name isn't that difficult. People can be so silly. Maybe it's because I have a unique name too, so I pay extra special attention to other unique names.

Theda K.

Terreece M. Clarke said...

Hey Theda! Welcome sistah! I'm glad you found me and I'm glad we'll be blogging together - and scooping each other for topics :0) I'm going to head on over to your blog asap. It's always nice to meet fellow bloggers and share in this whole writing thing.

I think part of my issue is that in school while I was getting my journalism degree - getting the name right was paramount. I think one instructor would fail the entire article if one was wrong.

It really matters.

Anonymous said...

I occasionally get that with my name. I've been called "Oprah", "Orphah", "Oprey". I found you via Theda. I like your blog.

Terreece M. Clarke said...

Hey Opal, not too bad if someone calls you Oprah - if they're making out a check that is... :-) Thanks for visiting! I'm my way over to your blog right now :0)

Anonymous said...

Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!