Why Charlei?
Once upon a time some well meaning hooked-on-phonics grade school teacher
told me that to spell a long vowel sound, the vowel that one wishes to
sound should be followed by a silent vowel (as in read, creep, ceil, receive).
Taking this to its logical end, as I considered how I should spell my name
(knowing that an i and an e had to fit somewhere), I decided that the most
reasonable solution would be have the i follow e. This also only required
a single character swap to return to my given name, Charles, (which, by
the way, is incredibly hard to pronunce if you are in second grade and
trying to get over a minor speech impediment). Only months later did I
learn the "i before e exept after c" rule, and only some time after that
was I informed that it should apply to my name as well.
Duly chastised, I conformed my writing to that dictated by my oppressors.
That is, until sometime between fourth and sixth grade when I discovered
THE INDIVIDUAL. I realised that one needed to break the shackles of society
and start a rebellion angainst prescriptivists. The problem was that I
kind of liked my prescriptivist task masters and didn't see a point in
making their life miserable by marking up all spelling texts. (After
all, one could easily see that they were prisoners as well as wardens.)
Working at my dad's beer distrubutor, I had seen every bar in Greene County,
so becoming a burnt out lush didn't seem a particularly creative way to
go. So in an act of daring, while completing a math quiz, I decided
that it was my name (okay, nickname) and I should spell it the way I want
-- especially if it made perfect sense to me to spell it that way.
It was time for me to make a stand and bear whatever marks came my way.
No longer would I be a cookie cutter copy of an idealistic pedagogical
paradigm! No longer would I be a counter-cultural knock-off! I would
be a self-made adolescent. I would be Charles J. George, a.k.a. Chuck,
Chas, or [thus I have written] Charlei.
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