Last night I lay awake unable to sleep because I couldn’t remember if Fred Astaire was spelled with an e or not - Astaire or Astair. Then I started thinking about the name Astaire and how it would be a really weird name if it was just a regular person’s last name - like, you never really use the word stair as a singular; they’re either stairs or a step.
But because it’s Fred Astaire the famous guy we always say his full name, as though the whole name runs together, with no attention paid to the last name by itself. So it’s never strange, always familiar. Until you’re lying awake at 3am like a loser hashing it out.
