Appel vs. Apple? 🍎 🍏

by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2015/08/24 13:56 +00:00, original URI: http://www.siao2.com/2015/08/24/8770668856267197094.aspx

not entirely, though maybe a little, unlike previous X vs. Y blog posts....

This blog post has nothing to do with Apple the company, Steve Jobs, Woz, or Tim Cook. The gratuitous picture of a non-emoji apple 🍎 is to prove that....

Sherry Apple was my good friend and colleague who was a brilliant neurosurgeon who disproved complaints about the arrogance of neurosurgeons on a regular basis.

In a past life, I was doing EEGs and other tests for neurologists and neurosurgeons, and we had a verbal game we played where I would tell her that all her troubles were caused by her last name being spelled incorrectly. We both enjoyed it.

Rachel Appel is a good friend and colleague who I believe I first met at VBITS years ago and my first words to her were "At least your last name is spelled correctly!" after which I explained enough about Dr. Sherry Apple so she wouldn't think that I was high or something, or maybe she didn't mind. I don't know if she remembers that conversation but I do know she visited with me for a while this last weekend and we just talked about stuff. She is also quite amazing and amusing.

By the way, they both represent two more examples of female friends and colleagues who I care a lot about but have never been romantically involved with in general or slept with in particular.

I'm not going to make it a blog category or anything (because idle speculation about specific ladies not categorized that way would seriously piss me off), but I want to make sure it is understood that most of my friends are female and I haven't been romantically involved with the majority of them. I am only calling out specific names since wild speculation about such things pisses me off even more.

Anyway, both of them have been able to be inspiring colleagues and great friends.

One of them was a brilliant neurosurgeon which helps make up for the fact that her name was spelled incorrectly for all of her life.

And the other has the intrinsic power of her membership in the Rachii collective to fall back on in case anyone fails to recognize either her brilliance as a software developer or the fact that her name is spelled correctly. ;-)

I'm curious, so what strikes you as being wrong about a name being spelt "Apple" rather than "Appel"? Neither seem like particularly usual or well-defined surnames to me. I wouldn't bat an eyelid at either. Is it just an intangible feeling that "Apple" as a name is wrong, or did you have some other reason?

Well Apple being wrong was an inside joke between Dr. Sherry Apple and I, kind of part of the mythology between us, while Rachel Appel having her name spelled correctly was me building up a new mythology over the years between her and I. Just the kind of thing that happens with good friends over time.... ;-)

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