Apparently some doofus who shares my first initial and last name has a hard time remembering that his email address is not my email address. In fact, there are several such doofuses.
(We are still avoiding real names here. Maybe someone could easily hack us and figure it out, but we have privacy concerns with our adopted children. So, for illustrative purposes, let's say I am John Doe.)
My user ID is "jdoe". Popular choice, apparently. I am THE jdoe, and I registered that user name with our email and internet provider, our banks, our utility companies, etc. I know, it's a great email address. That's why I picked it out 13 YEARS AGO. It's mine, and you can't have it. All you other J. Doe's will need to come up with a new user ID. You are going to have to be jdoe2, jkdoe, jdoecoolguy79822, jdoeloveskitties, whatever. I am jdoe, and you are not.
Jane Doe accidentally signed me up for her pastor's weekly email newsletter. I hope he doesn't think Jane is rude for never responding to the pledge drive.
Joseph Doe signed me up for some porn. Thanks a lot.
Joanna Doe gave my email address to her friends, and I got invited to a baby shower in California. I RSVP'd, of course, I figured it was the polite thing to do. I hope Joanna brought that cheese ball I volunteered us for.
One of these fools keeps screwing up my online banking login. Too many failed attempts, and I get an email that I need to reset my password again. Hey, doofus, if you want to go in and pay my bills instead of your own, I'll try to work something out. Otherwise, please remember that you are NOT jdoe.
Most recently, one Jake Doe signed up on Facebook with my email address. I do not use the Facebook. That is another post for another day. So, imagine my surprise when I received a friend request from my mom. Try to follow me here. Jake Doe used my email address (jdoe at email dot com), but his own name. This is where it gets crazy. One of our sons happens to also be named "Jake". So my mother sees what she believes to be my son's name on the internet and asks to be his "friend". He also has friend requests from a few people in our community band, and a few others. Seven, altogether. He's a popular kid, apparently.
Folks, do you really think that we would put our son on Facebook?! At age nine? There are no photos or other details. So the only identifying personal information on Jake's profile is:
1) His name is Jake
2) He was born in 1983
3) He is gay
None of those things tipped you off that you might have the wrong person? My head hurts.
By the way, "friend" is not a verb. Neither is "text". That is all.
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3 comments:
Sorry about your digital identity problems. :(
I'm not *trying* to be a pedant, but as a word nerd, I just wanted to dispute your assertions on parts of speech:
Getting with the digital revolution, even Webster has recognized "text" as a verb...for the last 12 years. I looked it up to be sure, and was surprised that it has been in verb usage for that long, but it just means I'm getting old more quickly than I realized. :)
Check it out online:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/text
And, "friend" has been a verb, however archaic, since the 13th century, as a variant of "befriend," which is exactly how it is used today.
This is from Webster, of course, but I can break out my fifty pound Compact OED for verification if you would like. :)
I'm not saying that it doesn't sound stupid when people use the words these ways, of course, but technically they are using them correctly.
Cheers.
First off, I know what it's like to live with somebody who has a common name. We have dealt with a delinquent D.F now since we tried buying our first home and his credit history was merged with my sweetie's. I'm constantly getting calls from creditors looking for the wrong guy and it stinks! That's one of the reason's why we went with the name we chose for your godson.
And, I have to agree with what Beaver said about digital vocabulary. For better or for worse, the english language is constantly changing. Mark my words, "google" will be a verb in the dictionary if it isn't already.
And the bit about the facebook profile...hilarious!
I really thought about looking it up to be sure. Sad but true. I won't argue with the experts, but I also won't like it or use it.
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