In a message dated 4/9/2004 7:54:08 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
jh_rodgers@BELLSOUTH.NET writes:
<< Atlanta phone book, circa 1975. Found under the "H" section - man's name
was Straten Hard. God's Truth!! >>
In a previous career, one of my jobs was to weed out false and offensive
names from the San Francisco Telephone Directory. One of my gotchas was "Ben
Dover". I kept a paper copy of the 1978 book with this entry but got him removed
permanently. I let slip Donald Duck because I thought it wasn't offensive to
most people. Noted down that Royal Valley was someone's legal name.

For those who used to Herb Caen, you must have seen the story on the dentist
who successfully sued my former employer for removing his listing from the
phone book. BTW, it wasn't I but my counterpart in Marin County who offended
Richard Darling, DDS. His listing in Corte Madera was under his nickname. It read
"Darling, Dick" or Dick Darling, DDS. Dick of course is what people popularly
used in place of Richard. Remember Trickie Dickie Nixon? Phone company paid
dearly for that.

Incidentally, for those who are familiar with my "humility" you will find
that my full initials are very appropriate for me. Though I go by BenT (Benjamin
Tan), my full initials is B.E.S.T. simply. When I was in front of an INS
officer decades ago, they actually suggested I cut off one of my middle names to
suit my new American identity. I jokingly asked her if Dino or Enzo Ferrari were
available but only if she could not pronounce Benjamin or Emmanuel. She was
not amused. Back then she could not deny citizenship to smartasses. I'm not so
sure now. Given the same situation I may have had to change my name to Sam
Ting.

BenT