To think that people should know what an underscore is?

[ThatPeskyUnderscore]

A few weeks ago, I was given the number of this digital artist from a Facebook friend as I was looking to commission a piece of digital art for my mum. We chatted over WhatsApp, the sketch photos she sent on there were great, and I sent her the sum we had previously agreed upon.

Last week, she asked for my email address (I've got a first_last one) so she could send me a google drive link to the file. I typed it out on WhatsApp and thought that was that. Checked my inbox later that night? No art. Checked it the next day? Still no art there.

I sent her a message asking her if she'd sent it? She said yes. Asked her if she'd sent it to the right address? Yes again. So I asked her if she could check again and she said she'd check when she's free. Two days later, I sent another message asking if she's checked if she'd sent it. She sent me a photo of the email and apparently she'd sent it to first-last!

Told her mine contained an underscore and she told me that her iPad's keyboard didn't have that character. She then copied and pasted the email from my earlier message and I finally got it! Told her thanks but that message has been stuck at 'one tick' for days. I love the piece she drew and was thinking of getting another for myself but if she's 'one ticked' me (think I'm blocked as her picture no longer shows either) then I'm out of luck. And to think all was going swimmingly before the bloody underscore came into play.

Even people working on manual typewriters back in the ‘60s would use underscores.
Definitely. It's how you underlined stuff.

Ive had the same when giving my email address on the phone. The woman said I dont understand what youre saying after e. I said a dash that lies on the floor, she repeated to her colleague who said oh she means an underscore. I BLOODY KNOW ITS AN UNDERSCORE!!

@ShaunaTheSheep

You have to go into the special characters keyboard to find the _ so it's possible she couldn't find it. YABU

Nope, you can find it in the main keyboard, next to zero, using the shift key _

I used to have an email address with an underscore, I changed it because it was a pain to write down on forms and so on and I was always worried someone might mistake it for a dash. I don't think I ever actually had any emails go missing though. Most people seemed to know what one was.

What do you suggest instead? As the hyphen or dot were already taken.

Significant number, honorific, middle name, middle initial, name abbreviation. (Dots don’t make a difference anyway - [email protected] is the same as [email protected]).

I always amazed by how many people think email addresses or web addresses are case sensitive. Email has been around for about 20 years, how have they not figured that out yet?

@MasterBeth
All those were taken. I tried all combinations. I also had to abbreviate my first name to three random letters. I don’t like random numbers in email addresses and I don’t have a middle name.

@MasterBeth

What do you suggest instead? As the hyphen or dot were already taken.

Significant number, honorific, middle name, middle initial, name abbreviation. (Dots don’t make a difference anyway - [email protected] is the same as [email protected]).

How did I not know that about dots until today? I work in computers ffs.

I changed my emails address due to the amount of people who would ask "what is an underscore?"

Example of many a phone conversation when giving email address before change:

ME: My email is Fat(underscore)Lady(underscore)@blahblah.com

THEM: Which one is that?

ME: What do you mean?

THEM: Is that the floating line or the bottom line?

I had to change it for my own sanity.

I would email back and not mention WhatsApp. The work sounds good and people need to earn money. It's a win_win.

Sometimes WhatsApp can be a bit overwhelming when people use it for work too. It would have been better if the artist had just said, do you mind using email from now on etc but I would put it down to that if I hadn't been rude or difficult etc.

[quote daisypond]@MasterBeth
All those were taken. I tried all combinations. I also had to abbreviate my first name to three random letters. I don’t like random numbers in email addresses and I don’t have a middle name.[/quote]
Post town, street name, fake initial, additional word... Be creative.

Your underscore name is problematic. You can complain that other people should know better but you can’t control the actions of other people. You can, however, choose an unproblematic name.

I always amazed by how many people think email addresses or web addresses are case sensitive.

A lot of the Internet originated on systems where it was/is case-sensitive. None of this sloppy Windows stuff.

How did I not know that about dots until today? I work in computers ffs.

It only works on google so be careful about that too! Had a 'tech savvy' person send an email to my work account with the dots omitted as 'dots don't matter' but dots do matter on Outlook/Mac so I never got the email!

@Hadjab - on a regular keyboard, yes, but not on an iPhone/iPad.

Yes, 2 taps or one tap and a downward drag on an iPad to get to the underscores.