Seems a lot of people don’t know how to pronounce my Christian name: Janet.
To me it seems obvious – but apparently it’s not, judging by the number of people who’ve mispronounced it over the years.
The easiest way for me to explain is to say that Janet rhymes with “planet” and also “granite”. As in:
- Janet has a head of granite;
- Janet is from another planet.
And yes, I might have heard both just a few times back in my school days.
If you’re really stuck, just think of the famous song “Dammit Janet” from the Rocky Horror Picture Show (a cult classic which I’ve actually never seen).
The Reality of Being Janet
However, most people mispronounce it as Janette, putting the emphasis on the final syllable, so that Janet sounds like “Annette”, except with a “J” in front of it.
I get called “Janette” regularly, and to be honest, it really doesn’t bother me; I’m not precious about it at all. Over the years I’ve encountered some weird and wonderful pronunciations of names that are quite common for middle aged women, like these:
- Karens, who insist on being called Car-en;
- Susans, who prefer to be addressed as Suzanne;
- Maries, who refuse to answer to anything except Maa-ree;
- Annas, who want to be Ahhh-na;
- Simones, who loathe being called Si–moan, and want to be called Si-mon;
- and even an Andrea who wanted to be known as the more posh sounding On-drey-a.
In fact, it was only recently that I actually corrected somebody’s pronunciation of my name, for the first time ever … and let’s just say it didn’t go so well!
Janet or Janette?!
I was the guest speaker at an event, and chatting to the MC beforehand, I noticed she called me “Janette”. Seeing as how she would be introducing me, I thought I should probably set her straight, so I told her as gently as I could, “Actually, it’s Janet”.
Poor love, she desperately wanted to get it right but when it came time to introduce me she mucked up the first mention, and called me “Janette”, and then got so flustered that she kept mixing up Janet and Janette throughout!
I felt so sorry for her, I resolved there and then never to correct the pronunciation of my name again.
Janet or Janette – it’s all the same to me …
Do people often mispronounce your name – and do you usually correct them?!