So I was over at Ryan's place reading about his Unreal Tournament experiences when an offhand comment about Maude Flanders got me to thinking. What's with the 'e' at the end of 'Maude'? It doesn't serve any real purpose. You don't pronounce it at all and it doesn't modify the other vowels. Why not 'Maud'? Isn't it just a tad pretentious to be adding extra letters onto a name and not even pretending to use them? Maybe I should go by 'Jime' and if people tried to use that 'e' to make a long I-sound I'd get all condescending on them like "Look you plebian, the 'e' is silent" and I'd be all looking down my nose at them (I might have to lean pretty far back to do that because I'm short but that'll just add to the pretentious effect) and I'd be all dismissive and "whatever" towards them.

Jackasses can't even pronounce my damn name? Screw 'em!