L’accent aigu
Unless you grew up with some sort of affinity to the French language, you probably struggle with the name Rémy.
(Or Remy, as it’s spelled in Americun.)
A few hints and random comments…
- Pronounciation: ray - mee
- Also ok, for fans of single-syllable names: raym
- Non-pronounciation: reh - mee
- Do I care? Not anymore. I don’t even notice.
- But if you were one of the few at work who asked how to not mangle it: Thank you.
- Yes, like the cognac. No, not like the Red Sox announcer.
- Rem-dawg is ok, if you’re the type who can get away with that non-ironically. Thus far, I’ve only known one such person.
Alternates
Why, some ask, do I sign my email as r’m?
Back in the young days of the internet, before email got stylized and annoying, I tried to figure out how to include the accent aigu in my name in my email signature.
It looked like this: Re’my
… because there was no way to get an é into the standard character encodings at the time.
That was pretty lame.
So I tried: R’my
Also lame.
After a few emails going back and forth, my good friend Rick Stevens gave up on me and dropped a few extra keystrokes: r’m
Nice and short. No capitals.
And, as it turns out, it’s how i refer to myself in my head anyway, because I’m one syllable per person is usually about right. “raym.”
Since then, I’ve signed email and other things that way. Not only is it easier, but it confuses people.
Bonus.