{"id":3799,"date":"2008-12-12T08:18:28","date_gmt":"2008-12-12T13:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3799"},"modified":"2008-12-12T08:22:02","modified_gmt":"2008-12-12T13:22:02","slug":"whats-in-an-assumed-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3799","title":{"rendered":"What’s In An Assumed Name?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Learned Foot [pen name] discusses discovering Learned Foote.<\/a> [pen name<\/strike> well, blow me down – it’s a real name. Who knew?]<\/p>\n

I don’t have that problem, so much – there are actually three Mitch Bergs in the Twin Cities that I know of, and for many years one of them worked in IT. He must have been older than me; while we never met, I knew plenty of people who’d worked with him at Control Data.<\/p>\n

My dad, Bruce Berg, had it weirder. There was another Bruce Berg in Jamestown, North Dakota. My dad was a high school teacher; the other one was in Human Resources at the factory on the north hill. To make things confusing, they both lived on the 700 block of 2nd Avenue – one of them on the north side, the other on the south. Every time there was a blizzard, we’d get inundated with people calling in sick; likewise the other Mr. Berg got plenty of calls for help with homework, I’m told. The funny part? In a town of 15,000 where everyone knows everyone, I’m not sure that they ever met.<\/p>\n

The top three most maddening things about my name?<\/p>\n

3. Oy, Avay<\/strong>: People assume I’m Jewish. Berg is, obviously, a common Jewish surname. As it happens, it’s also quite common among goyim<\/em> in Northern Europe as well; it’s German, Swedish and Norwegian for “Mountain”; like every goy <\/em>named Monta\u00f1a, Montagne, Vuori, Gornik, N\u00fai and Planina, my anscestors were from the hill country. Apparently. It used to cause both yuks and consternation when I was at KSTP-AM back in the eighties; I got the occasional anti-semitic call, even a death threat or two. I’m about as Jewish as a bacon cheeseburger, but this being right after the murder of Alan Berg<\/a>, I didn’t entirely <\/em>laugh it off.<\/p>\n

2. Punt This<\/strong>: For years – I do mean years and years – I’d say my name on the phone. People would audibly light up; “The <\/em>Mitch Berger<\/a>? The Vikings punter?” And no, just because he left the Vikes in 2000 doesn’t mean it’s over; my place-setting at the company Christmas party this year? Yep – the place card was for “Mitch Berger”. Next year I’ll wear a Steelers’ uniform and run with it. As it were.
\n1. Screw “U”<\/strong>: When I give my name to people on the phone or in person, I usually go “Name’s Mitch Berg, B E R G”. That’s to avoid the one question in the world of which I’m the sickest; “Is that B U R G or…”. In all my years, I have ever once met a single Burg with a “u”. I’m sure they exist, but good lord, they are scarce; there are probably as many people who spell it “Byrg”. There must be 50 Bergs for every Burg in the world. And yet every single time<\/em> I don’t spell it out letter by letter, I kid you not, people guess “Burg”. Will it never end?<\/p>\n

Not a huge <\/em>problem, obviously. Just had to get it out there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Learned Foot [pen name] discusses discovering Learned Foote. [pen name well, blow me down – it’s a real name. Who knew?] I don’t have that problem, so much – there are actually three Mitch Bergs in the Twin Cities that I know of, and for many years one of them worked in IT. He must […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mitch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}