The Most Beautiful Word in the English Language

Think about it, what is the most beautiful word in the English language?  What is the word that when we hear it, our ears perk up, and we’re intrigued.  We give the speaker our full attention. How can one word accomplish all that?  When it's your first name.

Think about it.  When we hear it, we respond.  It pleases us when someone knows our name, and calls us by it.  You don’t need to try to be modest, your name is beautiful.  When the sound vibrations echo through air into our inner ear, it’s perfect bliss.  We’re all a little bit selfish inside, but we’ve been trained with selective hearing throughout our lives to think our name is most beautiful word.  Selfish or not, we like when someone is talking about us.

 If you care about someone and want them to care about you, you better know their most beautiful word.  Remember their name and call them by it.  You’ll be so surprised how much it means to them.  They’ll instantly think your closer friends and will care a little bit more about what you’re saying.

I know what you’re thinking, “But I meet so many people, how can I possibly remember their names?”  The answer is you’ll remember what you value, and if you care about them, you should value knowing their names.  Let’s walk through a few strategies.  Everyone introduces themselves with their first name and normally a quick handshake follows (unless you’re in France where you get a courtesy kiss on the cheek).  The first strategy to remember a name is to repeat it instantly, while looking them in the eyes.  Once you hear it, respond back in question form.  “Jessica?” They’ll nod and now you’re mind has connected their face with their name.  If the conversation continues, make sure to use their name during it so you don’t forget.  When they mingle away, call them by their name and say it was nice meeting you.  You’re trying to slowly condition yourself to attach that name to that person.  Other strategies include asking them to spell a complicated name just so you can visual it.  Another is repeat the name to yourself in your head to continue to attach it, even during the conversation.

Here’s a situation that way too many people think is more awkward than reality.  After meeting someone once or more, you feel as if you should know their name.  But for some reason you’ve forgotten it.  Possibly, you haven’t tried any technique to remember it.  Or they are friends of friends and you haven’t been introduced enough to remember it.  So it’s too weird to ask them for their name because you should already know them and instead you never call them by it.  This becomes more and more awkward with each interaction.  The other funny thing is they probably forgot your name too.  Just be honest, and re-ask them.  Really it’s not a big deal to most people.  Then you’ll remember and eliminate the awkwardness of future encounters.

Also, always introduce friends.  Nothing is weirder than never being introduced to someone you’re hanging out with.  If you’re not sure if they’ll met before, introduce them again.  Worst comes to worst they already know each other, and you just cleared up any confusion about each other’s names.  Best case is they haven’t met and are glad they did.  It’s much less awkward to accidently introduce multiple times as opposed to not at all.

So your first name is the most beautiful word in the English language.  Everyone likes being remembered, so remember their name and call them by it.