28th August, 2002.
What happens when the Cow-orker doesn't get the answer she wants:
"Would you spell the department' with a capital 'T' and a capital 'D'?"
"No."
"How would you spell it?"
"Lower case 't', capital 'D'."
"Really? Because according to the Act of Parliament that formed us, our name is actually The Department. With a capital 'T'."
"Just because parliament made a typo a hundred years ago doesn't mean I'm going to perpetuate it."
"But I was in a meeting with some people and they all wanted it spelled in a contract as 'The Department'. The department head always spells it that way, he's always pushing that spelling."
"I still wouldn't spell it that way. 'Department' gets used as a proper noun, 'the' doesn''t."
"So you wouldn't spell it 'The Department'?"
"No." For the fourth time, no! I've denied you more times than Peter denied Jesus. Leave me alone!
"But that's how we were enacted!"
"And I might spell it that way if I was using it as our name in a legal document with a supplier. I wouldn't use it that way for anything else."
"But it's our name. I'm going to spell it that way."
"You asked me how I'd spell it. That's how I'd spell it. You can spell it however you want."
"Then I'll spell it that way, then."
"Good."
"Because that's what our name is. That's how it's spelt. Capital 'T', capital 'D'."
"Okay."
"Not small 't', big 'D'."
"Mm-hmm."
"Because even though that's gramatically right, it's not how it's spelled in our name." Pause. "Are you *sure* you'd spell it that way? I know I'd get upset if someone misspelled my name, or didn't give it a capital where one belonged."
Bizarrely, she sounds *really* stressed about all this, making me wonder for a moment whether someone's instituted capital punishment for staff who fail to give the Department the respect it deserves. At last her phone rings and I'm spared having to repeat myself yet again....
Others, however, aren't so lucky. She informs me that she's locked in an e-mail debate with three other people about whether we should be writing the Department or The Department in internal correspondence.
Then she corners our manager, whose eyes glaze over in pain.