The new Streisand Effect: Barbra calls Tim Cook to change Siri’s pronunciation

Those of us with difficult last names are accustomed to quietly bearing the indignities of constant mispronunciation, especially from digital assistant programs like Apple's Siri. My last name (Geuss) is pronounced "Gice," but that pronunciation is so far from being phonetically logical in English that if people get close—calling me Guess or Goose—I generally don't correct them. Siri insists on calling me "Megan Juice," which is not even close (and is also a beverage). I let it slide. After all, what recourse do I have?

None. That's how much recourse I have. But I am no Barbra Streisand.

Streisand, it seems, went on NPR this weekend to talk about her tour and her upcoming album Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway, and she told host Scott Simon that she was frustrated by the fact that Siri kept calling her Streizand rather than Streisand.

"And so what did I do?" Streisand said. "I called the head of Apple, Tim Cook, and he delightfully agreed to have Siri change the pronunciation of my name, finally, with the next update on September 30... So let's see if that happens because I will be thrilled."

Streisand has a reputation in the tech world for trying to have things her way, even to her detriment. The eponymous term "Streisand Effect" was born in 2003 after she tried to sue a photographer for putting an aerial photo of her property on the Internet. The photo was little-known until Streisand demanded it to be removed—then more than 400,000 people visited the site where the photo was posted in the following months. The term "Streisand Effect" has since been used to describe all kinds of similar disputes: a spat between a bus line and a subreddit, a University Chancellor trying to clean up her image online, or a bill in Georgia that would have made it illegal to photoshop a legislator's head on a porn star's body, for example.

Streisand's latest attempt to bend the digital world to her will is probably much less scandalous than trying to sue a photographer for posting photos of her property on the Internet. That is, of course, unless your last name is Streisand and you pronounce it with a "z." Then you might want to try your luck at calling Tim Cook to get it changed back.