A Zdachovaczyswiczowsky by any other name would smell as sweet

One advantage of having a last name of more than two syllables and letters approaching and attaining double digits is that you get plenty of practice in spelling it.

Spelling "Kozlowski" is no more intimidating than pronouncing it, but I have long since grown used to having to spell it for the salesperson, clerk or anyone else who needs to know my name.

As soon as I place my order or make a deal that requires me to give my name, I automatically begin to spell my last name three letters at a time from the "Koz" at the beginning to the "ski" at the end, with the "low" filling in the middle.

Actually, spelling my last name is the second action I take in such situations. The first exchange begins when I give my first name. "Walt," for some unknown reason, sounds like "Paul" on the phone. I spend several minutes assuring the person on the other end of the line that my name is indeed "Walt" and has been for as long as I can remember.

After that ordeal, I am ready for a quick surrender when it comes to spelling my last name. If the pizza shop owner or bail bondsman seems the least bit puzzled by the spelling of my last name, I say, "Just put down 'Koz.'"

During my years at the newspaper, I would often spend the better part of the day spelling my name for a caller and then having the caller spell his or her name for me. This situation was due to the fact that many of our readers were descendants of immigrants who came from regions of Europe where the residents spared no expense when it came to putting together their last names.

There were family names so long and difficult to pronounce that members of the clan had to have an oxygen tank on hand constantly in case they passed out try to spell and pronounce their surname.

(It's too bad that people from countries where names consist almost entirely of consonants could not intermarry with residents of places whose residents bear names that seem to be bunches of vowels in search of a consonant. Once they were pronounced man and wife, maybe they would be more pronounceable.)

Of course, a person's name is very important and everyone in the newsroom made an effort to try to get every name into print correctly. Naturally, there were obstacles to overcome.

My worst fear was a "you spell it like it sounds" name. A caller would provide a name such as "Zigmund Zdachovaczyswiczowsky Jr." and I would naturally ask the guy how to spell it. Inevitably, he would say, "You spell it exactly the way you pronounce it." If I could have pronounced "Zdachovaczyswiczowsky," I wouldn't have been working for a newspaper. I would have been in Washington cracking the secret codes of countries spying on the U.S.

One point in my favor was that I grew up in this area, so I was familiar with even the names with a surplus of syllables and lack of either consonants or vowels. (Most of my friends and I had such long names that we were able to donate syllables to needy classmates with short last names.)

The news staff's constant struggle to get names spelled correctly was hampered by the fact that often the people submitting articles misspelled the last names of their friends and fellow club members. I'm inclined to believe that in some cases the public relations person for that organization just tossed in his or her best guesses at spelling the names and hoped for the best.

Then there were times when the names were submitted correctly. The problem was being able to decipher the handwriting without having to send the article down to the FBI Crime Lab for analysis.

My fellow reporters and photographers and I would often leave the newsroom on the most dreaded of all name-related assignments - the group photo. It was a dreaded doubleheader.

When it comes to pictures, time becomes an issue. A group of people who sat through three hours of speeches at a banquet, begrudges two or three minutes for a picture. We would have to snap a few quick pictures and hope that on one of them nobody was blinking, looking in the wrong direction or scratching where they shouldn't be scratching.

Then came the nerve-racking nightcap in which we had to scribble down the names of a few dozen impatient photo subjects and hope we got the names spelled right and in the correct order.

I usually did fairly well in deciphering my own handwriting and spelling correctly the last names of the picture people. Even when I did drop a name and broke it, the people were almost always understanding.

However, there were some hotheads who took it personally when their name was misspelled. A few even called the paper to threaten me with bodily injury. When that happened, I would get out of town and hide out in a motel under an assumed name.

A name that was easy to spell.

(Kozlowski, a freelance writer from Mount Carmel, composes "Walt's Way for each Sunday edition.)