posted Aug 31, 2010 in Etiquette & Manners / Movies & TV / Networking / by Joanne Blake / 0 comments

I’d like to introduce… ooh, what’s her name?

Julia Ormond - name slip up tip from Emmys

We all forget someone's name occasionally. It's happened to all of us but probably not in front of a hundred million viewers.

Didn't you just cringe for poor Julia Ormond, the other night at the Emmys. She won best supporting actress for the HBO film Temple Grandin and then in the middle of her acceptance speech, she didn't have a wardrobe malfunction, she had a memory malfunction.

She got stuck on a name while warmly acknowledging the other four nominees. She got 3 names right except she couldn't quite remember one. "Katherine... Katherine... Oh what's her name? Katherine... I know it starts with an O." Click here to see Julia Ormand's slip up

Some work around advice

Has this ever happened to you when you're hosting a client at your business and you introduce them to a workgroup or team that is working on the their project? You get halfway through the team members and suddenly realize there's one name that you can't remember. OMG, It's so embarrassing.

The handoff tip

Here's a tip that we share in our business etiquette seminars. If you're touring people through work areas and are going to be making some group introductions of colleagues, do what in football they call  'a hand off'. If you're unsure of all the names, just introduce the team leader with a phrase like "This is Sharon Smith, manager of the marketing department and I'll let her introduce her great team."

Nice and smooth. Some etiquette advice that takes the pressure off you with no one's feelings getting hurt because you had a Julia Ormond moment.

P.S. I haven't seen Temple Grandin yet but since it was nominated for 15 Emmys and won five, it should be an excellent film. It's a biography of a woman who suffers from autism but goes on to become a professor, inventor, bestselling author and autism advocate. (And really, I think Julia Ormand got too heavily slagged by the Emmy reviewers. Don't you agree she didn't come across that badly at the Emmys, in spite of her slip up with Catherine O'Hara's name.)

Posted by Joanne Blake