Mike’s Real Estate Show

I’ve been a REAL   TORRRR for 30 years and used to drive my Executive Officer absolutely nuts by mis-pronouncing REAL TORRRR and giving it three syllables!! She’d correct me ALL the time. Real-Ter, Real-al-la-tor, etc.  What really does drive me crazy, to an extent, is when the Media and other fairly intelligent folks lump us ALL together as Realtors.
  We had a reporter for our local daily years back do an ongoing “dairy” of her experiences with Realtors and Agents as a tenant dealing with the sale of her rental unit. She slammed us weekly in the press. She then purchased a home but had a horrible experience with her chosen licensee. She called the same EO I referred to above and proceeded to rip her “Realtor” and wanted to file an ethics complaint. My EO looked up the Licensees name and told her she couldn’t do that. The reporter ripped her for 10 more minutes complaining how we Realtors protect our own, our code of ethics are nothing but a sham, blah, blah, blah. Anne let her rant, relishing every word, and when she was done and the reporter had literally run out of breath and was panting, the EO calmly said, “I would have no problem filing a complaint, we do it all the time, but in your particular case your agent is NOT a Realtor!”  The reporter stammered, “But your ALL Realtors!!” Anne calmly explained to her just WHAT the difference was between a licensee and a REAL TORRR!! I love that story!
  And as far as the Reality mis-pronunciation is concerned, I recall the great line from a “Thousand Clowns” when Jason Robard’s brother is begging him to “come back to reality!”. Robards deadpans, “Sure, but only as a tourist!”