The Telltale Hyphen
Thursday, March 24th, 2005What’s Terri Schiavo’s full name? If the various legal documents I’ve seen posted online are correct, her full name is Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo. This would fit into the common practice among married women to take their husband’s surname and make their maiden name a middle name. The reason I mention this is because I’ve been noticing more and more of her “defenders” refer to her as “Terri Schindler-Schiavo”. Now the motivation for awkwardly throwing her maiden name into the equation is pretty obvious, but here’s a semi-rhetorical question : Did Terri every use a hyphenated last name on her checks, bills, driver’s license, etc? Considering that the hyphen doesn’t appear in court records, it seems that the hyphen is an invention by those who want to draw a line of seperation (however slight it may be) between Terri and her husband. My mind boggles at the notion that the people who are the most vocal about respecting her wishes can’t be bothered to even refer to Terri Schiavo by her chosen name.


