"Is that Philip with one L or two?" perhaps. "Anne with an E or without?"

This is because we are all taught that one thing we should not get wrong is the name because people get very cross about it.
And quite right, too.

Wasn't there someone who once said: "You can say what you like about me but at least spell my name right"

Couldn't agree more.

There are also people who have the very same strong feelings about places.

For years The Star has received irate letters from Manor readers furious a reporter has decided something has happened on their patch when they say it is in Wybourn.

There are an equal number of Wybourn readers who see red when they get moved lock, stock and barrel into the Manor.

I asked a colleague which of the two districts he thought the more upmarket. He thought about it for some time. "Wybourn is up the hill," he said.

I suppose it's a matter of where you draw the line.

The other day I got a letter from a reader well and truly putting me in my place for, on another page in another column, I had declared the Bull's Head pub to be in Fulwood.

And of course I was wrong.

Out by a mile or two.

"It is not at Fulwood but Ranmoor, near Ranmoor Church and Ranmoor Inn and is nearer to Broomhill than Fulwood," said my correspondent, spelling it out in terms simple enough for a five-year-old to understand.

And he hadn't finished.

"After Ranmoor there is the district of Nether Green and Fulwood is beyond that."

Touché.

And he still hadn't finished.

The end of the letter was as priceless a put-down as I have ever had: "I hope that you find this information useful for the future."

I plead guilty. I have made this mistake before and I hope I don't make it again but I know why I was confused. The Bull's Head is on Fulwood Road.

I looked at the address to see whether it was a resident of Ranmoor or Fulwood I was annoying.

He came from Crookes.

Now I often get very mixed up between Crookes, Commonside and Walkley and I'm not the only journalist you'll see at The Star poring over the Ato Z.

"I live in S11," someone will say. "Would you say that is more Parkhead than Ecclesall?" asks the reporter, anxious not to get a brickbat.

There are readers in Pitsmoor convinced there is, and I quote, "a sinister anti-Pitsmoor prejudice in your paper."

This comment followed a story about a ne'er-do-well we said lived in Pitsmoor. No he didn't, said our correspondent, "the clue is in the name: Philadelphia although more broadly the street is in the Upperthorpe area."

He delivered the ultimate threat. He would be "contacting the Burngreave Messenger about the matter."

I was once baffled by a woman on the phone who told me she lived in Brumall.


I was at a loss. Broomhill?
No, Brumall.

Then I twigged. it was Broomhall. She was obviously trying to take it upmarket by changing the pronunciation.

There are times when you get things so wrong there is no point making weasely little excuses like mine over Fulwood Road.

When I first arrived in Sheffield I had yet to learn all the little things about the area that now come second nature.

It would have helped when I came to write a big story about Chatsworth House.

There was one little error in it that should have been spotted as the story went slowly up the editing chain but somehow wasn't.

A few days later I got a letter with the Chatsworth seal on it.
It was a very sweet letter from the Duke's secretary thanking me for the article. Then I came to the last line.

"I feel I should point out that it is the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire who live at Chatsworth and not the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk."

Ouch!