Things are different except when not

[mtbc]

Some things I don't know much about: I don't pay much attention then become confused. An example would be noticing that Pussy Riot and the Pussycat Dolls distinctly name different bands, indeed considerably different.

Sometimes I know about only one of the things. For example, Martin McGuinness is a terrorist turned politician. Paddy McGuinness wasn't much in my mind until I noticed that when he is referenced people really appear not to be talking about Martin. Clearly I ought not just fit people to the closest name for which I already have a referent. I do that most easily if the number of syllables is the same. Also I suppose that the vowels are similar in that case.

Being aware that I make such careless mistakes I try to watch out for them. This too fails. I noticed that I had lumped Ade Edmondson and Adrian Edmondson together so I thought I had better check each of their Wikipedia pages. It turns out that the latter redirects to the former. With hindsight that's no surprise but at least I try to do better.

Comments

[wpadmirer]

OMG, how can you NOT confuse people with the same last name? My brain does that all the time, and I have to correct it when I realize I've wandered off in the wrong direction.

[mtbc]

At work I have extra issues: unrelated colleagues share the same surname and for me the chat system we use has people with the same nick in different channels where only one of them is my boss!

[wpadmirer]

Yeah, I'd be in big trouble with that.