What's in a name?

[aryanhwy]

This week's Savage Love column considers a letter by someone who's boyfriend has a close female friend and who has been mixing up their names. Reading a lot of the reader responses made me laugh. I'm generally good with names, and don't have slips of the tongue like that, but growing up I was often "Car[olyn]-An[drea]-Sara" to my Dad (just as he, his brother, and the dog were "Scriny" (Scott/Craig/Tiny) to his mom). On the other hand, I can tell when I've been spending too much time at the office -- such as once when we were still in the old building I told Joel was I going to go "to the livingroom" (instead of the common room) to make some more tea, and just the other morning as I was leaving home to head out to the office, I said "see you tomorrow" instead of "see you later", and realized a bit later that the reason I said that was because "see you tomorrow" is what you say when you're leaving work and going home (I'd rather view this slip-up more as a positive comment about how I feel at work, rather than a negative comment about how I feel at home!). I haven't ever called Joel by either of the cats' names yet, but I do occasionally mix up the cats' names and endearments (at which I always feel guilty, since I know Slinky knows the difference between "babe" (her) and "baby" (Widget)).