The same professional surname

One of the senior tax partners at Horwath Clark Whitehill told me this delightful story many years ago. He was an FCA and also a Fellow of the Institute of Taxation. In those days the relevant initials were FTII as this was before the Institute became a Chartered body.

Ian had received a letter that had clearly been processed as part of a mail-merge facility (which must have been in its infancy in those days). He told me the salutation read:

Dear Mr Fcaftii - Which he pronounced: Dear Mr FeckerFooty

Ian noticed that the signatory had the same designatory letters so he responded by writing back:

Dear Mr Fcaftii. I see our computers think we share the same surname