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[Skewbrow]

  After entering the US I gave up the struggle of teaching people how to pronounce my name in less than two weeks. If a person's exposure is to English, Spanish and French, then it is quite difficult for them to get used to German/Nordic letter to phoneme mapping. 'J' and 'Y' are then both difficult. My close friends and most of the professors I worked with took the effort to learn it (much appreciated by me!), but normally people would give up after having it spelled for them once and heard it pronounced twice. It would have been pointless to be offended by this, because more often than not those people were at least a little bit embarrassed for no real reason at all. Even more so because even after four years my (presumably English) 'V':s still sounded a lot like 'W':s and when my tongue dried up a bit my 'C':s and 'G':s both defaulted to 'K':s (so my friends would have to spend a moment deciphering whether I had said 'cold' or 'gold'). Kudos to those rare people who can completely get rid of the effects of their native language.

The only occasion I was mildly miffed about seeing my name misspelled was when, after having been a TA to one professor for two months, he still couldn't get my initials right. Look it up from the name tag in the mail room before you leave me a note, please!

[Deadlywonky]

i've had a number of amusing letters through from C/S departments of big corperations addressing me as Mr Sierra-Echo.

Guess how i try to ensure maximum clarity when spelling my name.

The worst part is that my surname is 7 letters long.

[Carl-E]

Mine's only 7 letters as well, and only 2 are vowels.  Problem is, the last letter is an e, and most english speakers assume it's silent (it isn't, the name's 14th century Germanic).  The middle cluster of 'tsch' throws many people off as well, a vowel sound frequently gets inserted in there somewhere. 

I did find that an Italian-looking respelling ('cc' in the middle, ending in i) ensures proper pronunciation when I give the name at a restaurant.  They even get the accent on the right syllable...

[dps]

Really, I find Padma to be quite different from Dora in appearance (aside from the skin color) Different eyes, facial structure, hair (of course).  The only things they have in common really are that they're both shop owners and have a similar body type. 

Let's see...

Differently shaped jaw, differently shaped eyes, different nose (I like a strong nose, myself)...

So what's all this doppleganger nonsense? 

Yeah, I don't really see any great resemblance between Padma and Dora either.  And Elliot doesn't look like anyone else in the comic particularly, either.  Of course, his personality is a complete mystery, since he hasn't had any lines.

[snubnose]

Pffft.

Jumping the shark just because of one single arc you dont like ?

Pfft.

[Carl-E]

Snubnose, I'm wondering who you're replying to. 

As for jumping the shark, I don't think it means what you think it means. 

[pwhodges]

Snubnose, I'm wondering who you're replying to.

The first post of this thread.

[CrowFairy]

And Elliot doesn't look like anyone else in the comic particularly, either.  Of course, his personality is a complete mystery, since he hasn't had any lines.

Actually, he did speak the first time we saw him: 1845

My first impression was a Marten type, except exaggerated.

[Cartilage Head]

 I think that by now it cannot be ignored that Renee looks and acts almost exactly like Faye. I hope if she's going to be sticking around that the plot expands on that a little bit.

 By the way, I already know that it is part of a joke. Something about the way the new characters are represented just rubs me the wrong way. Can't quite place it.

[dps]

And Elliot doesn't look like anyone else in the comic particularly, either.  Of course, his personality is a complete mystery, since he hasn't had any lines.

Actually, he did speak the first time we saw him: 1845

My first impression was a Marten type, except exaggerated.

Oops, forgot that.