My surname is odd, and clunky, and very few people can spell or pronounce it correctly. I have been called Mrs Ifooloo, Miss Iffowld, ‘Ms I-errrr?’ (my mum once got ‘Mrs Mould’ and my dad has been addressed as ‘Mr Hi-Fi’ on more than one occasion.) I like having an awkward surname. It can be a good test of how much someone cares about things like getting your name right, which is often a good test of other things about a person. However, if someone gets it wrong, it’s really not the end of the world, and it’s not as if I get everything right all the time.
Of course, it can be hugely irritating when someone else claims something about you that isn’t true — but what lengths would you go to in order to correct them? The website iCorrect was set up by Sir David Tang, and its tagline reads ‘the universal website for corrections to lies, misinformation and misrepresentations’. It’s actually a website for celebrities and socialites to refute claims made about them, and it’s weirdly compelling.
I now know that Anouska Hempel has never said that she favours style over comfort. I know that Simon Murray is 71, not 61 (but I had to check who Simon Murray is). I know that Michael Caine never said ‘not many people know that’, and judging by his post, he’s quite cross that people think he did. ‘I do not mind something clever being attributed to me, but I do mind something stupid that I did not say or do’.
You can completely understand why some people would want to correct the assertions made about them. Cherie Blair did not attend a shooting party with Colonel Gaddafi’s son. Stephen Fry is upset by a claim that he dislikes Catholics. Completely understandable. But the more you read, the more odd some of the other corrections seem. Dasha Zhukova has not yet joined Twitter. Jemima Khan never changed her first name. Edgar Bronfman Jr is not Canadian, he’s American.
There are two dangers here — first, by drawing attention to the inaccuracy, it becomes even more fixed in people’s minds. (I now can’t help wondering how much Chelsea FC DID spend on a night out for a player’s birthday, if it wasn’t the alleged £120,00). Second, some of these corrections look downright petty. Yes, if you’re in the public eye then reputation matters but surely with some of these ‘accusations’, as the site calls them, it would have been better to ignore it, or laugh it off? Isn’t that what the rest of us do? The founder of iCorrect has posted a correction to the accusation ‘David Tang is a creep’. ‘This is greatly exaggerated’, he says. Maybe so, but would you really set up a website just to say it ain’t so?
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