Unfortunate Abbreviation Theatre, Vol. 6: The Return of P. Ness
If you never read Volume Five and haven't heard of P. Ness, go here:http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2005/08/unfortunate-abbreviation-theater-vol-5.html.
From longtime DQ reader Mark Lahren:
P. Nesss is alive... and living in Washburn, North Dakota, just 35 miles north of here.
I was driving home from work tonight and heard her name on a radio advertisement for an insurance agency in Washburn. "Visit your friendly agents Paulette Ness and ---" I can't remember the other one (probably Avagina Karp or something...).
That last name actually has a story behind it.
I drive a transit bus for elderly and handicapped in Bismarck. There are about 20 busses out there at any given moment during the day. We have one dispatcher giving orders to about 20 drivers, and we are all on the same frequency, so we can hear everything going on at all times. And, since the busses are noisy, all the drivers keep their radios cranked up pretty high so we don't miss any last-minute dispatches. Which means our passengers can hear the two-way chatter too.
Also keep in mind our daytime dispatcher is just slightly dyslexic, which makes for some really entertaining foreign-name pronounciation, one of which follows:
I've got two elderly ladies in the back of my bus, and I'm on my way to pick up a third, when we hear one of the other drivers call the dispatcher. Driver #66 is confused. He has arrived at the proper dispatched address, but no one is coming out of the building at the appointed time for their ride.
Driver 66: Uh...Who am I looking for here? I'll run up and try to buzz their apartment.
Dispatch: You're looking for A...A...
Driver 66: I did not copy.
Dispatch: Hold on. It's apartment 312.
Driver 66: A name would help for when I ring the buzzer...?
Dispatch: Okay. You're looking for A--va--ji--na karp.
Driver 66:
Dispatch: You heard me. A-vagina Karp.
Driver 66:
Dispatch:
Driver 66: Thank you.
By now I was laughing so hard I nearly had to pull over. One of the ladies in my bus said to the other, "Can you believe someone named their child that?!?"
I turned my head and said, "I think she's German," through my tears, as if that explained everything.
Anyway, my main point was that after all these 20 years, Paulette Ness has surfaced!
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