Two F’s, two T’s. Why is this so hard?

My colleague Bill Freehling always gets it right.

When he writes about a Buffett—usually Warren, sometimes Fredericksburg’s own Doris, rarely Jimmy—he spells the last name thus:

B-U-F-F-E-T-T.

Because that is how the name is spelled.

If you spell it “Buffet” with one T, as many, many people seem compelled to do, you are not talking about any of these:

Warren Buffett

Doris Buffett

Jimmy Buffett

No, if you spell it “buffet,” you are talking about one of these:

A buffet

(Images of Warren Buffett and Jimmy Buffett used in this post are in the public domain. Image of Doris Buffett is by Suzanne Carr Rossi of The Free Lance-Star and is copyrighted.)

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