The racist practice of mispronouncing names

Mott the Hoople said:
You married a Southern gal didn't you? Watch out if they say "Bless your/his/her heart" to you. It's how Southern ladies politely call you an idiot. Example. Look at Earl out there spraying diesel fuel on a hornets nest....bless his heart.
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Yep, she’s from Dallas and she said that a lot when we were dating. I honestly thought it was her way of saying how much she was into me. I thought it was a southern thing. I loved it. Little did I know...
 
I guess I am racist against Eastern Europeans. In fact, I am racist against my own Czech heritage, because I still don't know how to pronounce Famke Janssen's name! :cof1:
 
Mispronunciation has complex causes, often far back in history In Britain, for instance, ruling groups impose their language, and but for the 100 Years War we'd all be speaking French now. Somewhere way back, as far as we can make out, a very small group of German mercenaries managed to impose themselves as an aristocracy on the vastly larger British population of the eastern provinces, but it was quite easy to turn yourself into one of them if you learned their language, with the result that as compared with any other dialect of German English has about thirty specific features, all of them typical of 'Celtic' British. The one thing you must NEVER do however was understand your own language: you had to pretend that was impossibly difficult, with the result that 'English' people can't possibly pronounce 'Welsh' names, or learn simple rules like that in the latter language 'f' is pronounced as in English 'of', 'ff' as in English 'off'. You become part of the power-group everywhere by playing these silly games, especially with names, and it is almost unbelievably boring!
 
iolo said:
Mispronunciation has complex causes, often far back in history In Britain, for instance, ruling groups impose their language, and but for the 100 Years War we'd all be speaking French now. Somewhere way back, as far as we can make out, a very small group of German mercenaries managed to impose themselves as an aristocracy on the vastly larger British population of the eastern provinces, but it was quite easy to turn yourself into one of them if you learned their language, with the result that as compared with any other dialect of German English has about thirty specific features, all of them typical of 'Celtic' British. The one thing you must NEVER do however was understand your own language: you had to pretend that was impossibly difficult, with the result that 'English' people can't possibly pronounce 'Welsh' names, or learn simple rules like that in the latter language 'f' is pronounced as in English 'of', 'ff' as in English 'off'. You become part of the power-group everywhere by playing these silly games, especially with names, and it is almost unbelievably boring!
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The Welsh language is a real turn-ff.
 
iolo said:
Mispronunciation has complex causes, often far back in history In Britain, for instance, ruling groups impose their language, and but for the 100 Years War we'd all be speaking French now. Somewhere way back, as far as we can make out, a very small group of German mercenaries managed to impose themselves as an aristocracy on the vastly larger British population of the eastern provinces, but it was quite easy to turn yourself into one of them if you learned their language, with the result that as compared with any other dialect of German English has about thirty specific features, all of them typical of 'Celtic' British. The one thing you must NEVER do however was understand your own language: you had to pretend that was impossibly difficult, with the result that 'English' people can't possibly pronounce 'Welsh' names, or learn simple rules like that in the latter language 'f' is pronounced as in English 'of', 'ff' as in English 'off'. You become part of the power-group everywhere by playing these silly games, especially with names, and it is almost unbelievably boring!
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My theory on dialects is that people deemed inferior by an upper class purposely use slang and mispronunciation to show disrespect to those who look down on them. Thus the "Cockney" dialect in the UK, the "Bahstin" accent in New England and "Ebonics" in the US.
 
Dark Soul said:
My theory on dialects is that people deemed inferior by an upper class purposely use slang and mispronunciation to show disrespect to those who look down on them. Thus the "Cockney" dialect in the UK, the "Bahstin" accent in New England and "Ebonics" in the US.
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Yes, but - the difficulty is that some people want to impress those with power, and a lot of those in power can simply ignore the disrespect of 'inferiors', slap them down, or get others (Brummies or Liverpudlians, say) to compete with Cockneys.
 
BillyShouldPostMore said:
well tough fucking shit if you have a hard name to pronounce people can't just will themselves to say a hard tongue twister on demand for a name/word they are not familiar with.
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Tough fucking shit if you're too stupid to learn how to pronounce ethnic names even after they've been phonetically broken down for you.

When I was a kid in the 1950s, we had an elementary teacher shitcanned by the school committee for refusing to pronounce ethnic names correctly.

She said this is America. We''ll pronounce names the American way. The school committee said, Good luck with your new career. Good for them.
 
Dark Soul said:
My theory on dialects is that people deemed inferior by an upper class purposely use slang and mispronunciation to show disrespect to those who look down on them. Thus the "Cockney" dialect in the UK, the "Bahstin" accent in New England and "Ebonics" in the US.
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I say that if you aren't putting forth the effort to master your primary or native language, then you are being lazy.
 
NiftyNiblick said:
Tough fucking shit if you're too stupid to learn how to pronounce ethnic names even after they've been phonetically broken down for you.

When I was a kid in the 1950s, we had an elementary teacher shitcanned by the school committee for refusing to pronounce ethnic names correctly.

She said this is America. We''ll pronounce names the American way. The school committee said, Good luck with your new career. Good for them.
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One of my philosophies of life is to call me anything but late for dinner.
 
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