As some people take great joy in pointing out my name is officially David. Its not really tho, I think both my grandmothers are the only people who call me that all the time. Other than that I don’t answer to it, I don’t usually notice. I’ve gone by Dave for as long as I can remember. Most David’s I know prefer Dave, in fact I only know one that prefers David.
Anyway I don’t know why, but my name is Dave and that’s pretty much that. Well, except for my immediate family. There is a shorthand we use mainly while talking in im or email, my sister Katie is ‘KT’, my sister Mairead is ‘MD’ and I’m just plain old ‘D’. But a while ago…and don’t ask me when we got into the habit of calling each other that. Pretty straight forward for Kate, just pronounce the ‘K’ and the ‘T’ heavier than normal and while it still sounds just like her name, you can tell the difference. ‘MD’ is just that pronounce the ‘M’ and the ‘D’. And for me, its just ‘D’.
This leads to another point and I do remember one friend asking me why in the fuck I did it as my name was short enough already. I tend to sign my emails (work and play), my message boards and various other things with a simple ‘d’. I’ve been doing it for a few years now but over the past year anyway its been that and nothing else. I guess I got into the habit when I had a standard signature going for work. It was something that had to be done and I never felt that anything I sent was finished and ready until I had signed it. This lead to the case being quite often that my pre-set signature began with:
Regards
Dave
and two lines above it would either be exactly the same thing I had just typed out. Or ‘cheers’ or ‘thanks’ instead of the ‘regards’. It was kinda silly and I’ve gotten rid of the that part of my sig. But anyway its now more than a habit, it is just what I do. I’ll sign whatever I’m doing with a ‘d’ or in many cases IE will autofill it for me.
And yes in lowercase. Again don’t ask me why. I guess it is just because I like the look of the letter (shrug), when I’m actually using a pen (or pencil which I prefer) the ‘D’ in Dave comes out as a joint lettering ‘d’ even tho I tend to write in a mixture of joint and print. It does have a couple of loops on it and will flow into the ‘B’ my initials pretty easily. On that note, it is worth pointing out my handwriting is shit and no-one can read it. The signature on the back of my plastic is a joke, none of them really look the same and despite efforts I have never really developed a signature. I’m sure some of my letters come across the same and an expert could easily tell but…
So um yeah that was a little more than I intended but I just sent an email to a friend. I had written it out and then decided I would in fact give her a call instead. I saved it into my drafts folder and rang. She wasn’t answering. So I went back to add a note to the top of the email to state I had rung, etc. and that the email was below and then despite having lines of text below I signed it ‘d’. I did delete it but it felt unfinished.