you go by pronunciation, not spelling

[diable_sinistre]

I know that this is a minuscule pet peeve in the grand scheme of things but every single time I read it, my brain breaks a little.

Leo is a nickname for Leonardo. So it is appropriate to call Leonardo DiCaprio, Leo.

Leo, however, is not a nickname for the name Leonard. Leonard is pronounced Len-Ard. The o is merely a decoration and not pronounced

Comments

[lady_death]

I am trying to picture McCoy as a "Leo" and it's making my brain hurt. Besides the fact that he already has a nickname, I don't see him responding to Leo in any way that doesn't end in sarcasm.

Maybe I could see Kirk calling him that to be completely obnoxious, knowing full well that you don't make nicknames off of the spelling.

People are really doing this?

[diable_sinistre]

I wish that they weren't but yes, there is a percentage of the fandom that when writing fics they have people call him Leo.

The first time I came across it I figured it was just an ESL writer who got confused by the spelling. Then I kept finding other fics with it. It's to the point that when I run into one of these fics I have to copy it into a word processing program and find change all the Leos to Leonard just to be able to read it.

I understand the fics that have his ex-wife in them and she calls him Len. There it serves the two fold purpose of showing that there was a closeness at one point and showing that he had a different life before joining Starfleet.

You're absolutely right, there is no need for it when he has the amazing nickname of Bones and he'd never ever respond to Leo. He's Dr. Leonard H. McCoy, dammit! Jim Kirk is the only one who gets away with using a name that's not Leonard or McCoy.