mistaken identity?

[cellio]

Yesterday I picked up the ringing phone to be met with "Is this Mrs. Cellio?" Now, that's a telemarketing tip-off as far as I'm concerned, as is "...Mrs. Zweig?", so I asked who was calling. Sometimes I respond to such things with "there's no such person"; this time I started to and at the same time she was saying my full name, so I let her talk to me.

It turned out to be someone from Ohr Somayach, an organization I support, so it was, I suppose, ok that she called me. It wasn't a cold-calling telemarketer, at least. (Or UJF -- same thing.)

But the whole thing did make me wonder about one tangential thing: am I "Mrs. Cellio"? I mean, I'm married, and I kept my original last name of "Cellio", but "Mrs. Cellio" usually implies a "Mr. Cellio", right? And there's no "Mr. Cellio" living here. I don't think of myself as either "Mrs. Cellio" or "Mrs. Zweig"; I mostly just avoid honorifics, and grudgingly cough up an ambiguous "Ms." if forced to specify something. I've done this since college; it's not recent. (Aha -- a reason to seek a PhD! :-) )

I wonder what my various friends with mixed last names do.

Comments

old-fashioned etiquette

[jpbl.livejournal.com]

Not that I want to stir things up, but I seem to remember from books I read while I was planning my wedding that in old-fashioned (and old) etiquette books, the proper way to address a married woman is either Mrs. Husband's-First-Name Husband's-Last-Name or Wife's-First-Name Wife's-Last-Name (with no title). Obviously in the past, it was assumed that the Wife's-Last-Name = Husband's-Last-Name, which isn't always the case. But, according to that logic, you could be addressed as Mrs. Dani Zweig or Monica Cellio, but not as Mrs. Monica Cellio, Mrs. Monica Zweig, or Monica Zweig. Of course, I'm not trying to imply that the people who keep calling you Mrs. Cellio (except grandparents and those of that age) have ever read those etiquette books, and at the moment, I think you've got a really good way to recognize telemarketers, which is always a plus. :)