This is the second installment in an occasional series called Aptonym Alert, in which we draw your attention to humorously placed bylines. Our last post on this matter discussed Jacob Brogan, who worried in Slate about the “unintentional masculine cliché” of grilling.
Today, Media Monkey, the Guardian‘s “simian diarist” of media gossip, turned the spotlight on a Financial Times reporter named Madison Marriage, who covers “all things investment related,” as her Twitter bio puts it. A pretty solid name in general, but made infinitely more special since Ms. Marriage wrote about the data breach at Ashley Madison, the website devoted to helping married men and women cheat on their spouses.
We asked Ms. Marriage in an email whether her editors assigned her the story to have a little fun with her byline, or if the whole thing was just a happy coincidence.
“I was part of the small team working on the news desk at 7am this morning so it was mainly a coincidence,” Ms. Marriage replied, “although we were aware of the irony when I picked it up.”
Either way, it’s a good day for aptonyms. Less so for Ashley Madison users.
