athousanderrors (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
athousanderrors) wrote2017-02-15 07:15 pm
athousanderrors) wrote2017-02-15 07:15 pm
animatedamerican: janothar: fenrisesque: janothar: thefingerfu...
via http://ift.tt/2lRqaUP:
animatedamerican:
janothar:
fenrisesque:
janothar:
thefingerfuckingfemalefury:
badgyal-k:
tashabilities:
neenorroar:
lionsgobrawrg:
wumbawoman:
aj-elloo:
andreii-tarkovsky:
Fresh Off the Boat - “Hi, My Name Is…”
YES
Why Uzo Aduba wouldn’t change her name:
My family is from Nigeria, and my full name is Uzoamaka, which means “The road is good.” Quick lesson: My tribe is Igbo, and you name your kid something that tells your history and hopefully predicts your future. So anyway, in grade school, because my last name started with an A, I was the first in roll call, and nobody ever knew how to pronounce it. So I went home and asked my mother if I could be called Zoe. I remember she was cooking, and in her Nigerian accent she said, “Why?” I said, “Nobody can pronounce it.” Without missing a beat, she said, “If they can learn to say Tchaikovsky and Michelangelo and Dostoyevsky, they can learn to say Uzoamaka.”
source
They can learn
I’ve worked with many exchange programs on campuses, and they still “encourage” Chinese students to choose English names for their stay in the US. I’ve adopted a rule for myself, I won’t address them with their English name until they’ve told me to stop trying their real name on at least three different occasions. My family is largely immigrant, and while we’ve never had this problem, I don’t think anyone should have to change who they are when them find a new home, even a temporary one. So far, only two exchange student actually wanted to keep their English name, and one of them, Alice, had had Alice for a nickname since she was little.
Don’t know if it’s okay to add this here, but I used to work with a Chinese woman who had changed her name to Angelina for the sake of ease. When she first told me that was what she’d had to do, I asked her for her real name and if she minded me calling her that. She looked so frikkin happy, and it only took about two minutes for me to say it right. It’s not that people can’t pronounce these names, it’s that they won’t. It’s lazy and it’s rude.
It’s also RACIST.
Say ‘racist’.
They pronounce Tchaikovsky and Schwarzenegger just fine.
^THANK YOU. Babies of color,
MAKE THEM SAY YOUR FUCKING NAME. ALWAYS.
ALL OF THIS
This just always reminds me of my friend Chaim who gets it pronounced like chain, but with an m. ALWAYS LISTEN TO PEOPLE AND TRY TO PRONOUNCE IT.
Yes, some languages have different phonemes, no one’s going to get too upset if you actually cannot form the right sounds, but at least give it a shot!
GOD THE CH IS WHY I STOPPED GOING BY MY MIDDLE NAME
Let me guess, Channah? Chavah?
But note, they also pronounced Chaim’s vowel wrong, not just the chet.
So I’ve got two coworkers whose real names are Chaim and Chana, but I didn’t know that for years because they’d been going by Charles and Hannah to make things easier for coworkers who couldn’t say the ch-sound. And by the time I found out it was far too late to raise a stink on their behalf. And okay, I will concede when it comes to sounds that don’t exist in English and that are genuinely hard to say if you weren’t raised with them.
But then a few years back we had a summer intern named Yedidya. Which, as some of you may know, is the non-anglicized pronunciation of the Biblical name Jedediah.
And I heard a coworker asking him “Can we call you Jed?”
And I said “OKAY NO. Look. There is NO REASON why you can’t say his real name. Repeat after me: ya didn’t, did ya?”
Coworker repeated it, bemused.
Me: “Okay, now say that again, and leave out didn’t.”
Coworker: “… Yedidya?”
Me: “See?”
If the sounds exist in your native language, you have no excuse for not learning to say a name just because it doesn’t look or sound enough like anything on your personal mental list of Real Names. And honestly, even if the sounds don’t exist in your native language, you have no excuse for not at least trying.
animatedamerican:
janothar:
fenrisesque:
janothar:
thefingerfuckingfemalefury:
badgyal-k:
tashabilities:
neenorroar:
lionsgobrawrg:
wumbawoman:
aj-elloo:
andreii-tarkovsky:
Fresh Off the Boat - “Hi, My Name Is…”
YES
Why Uzo Aduba wouldn’t change her name:
My family is from Nigeria, and my full name is Uzoamaka, which means “The road is good.” Quick lesson: My tribe is Igbo, and you name your kid something that tells your history and hopefully predicts your future. So anyway, in grade school, because my last name started with an A, I was the first in roll call, and nobody ever knew how to pronounce it. So I went home and asked my mother if I could be called Zoe. I remember she was cooking, and in her Nigerian accent she said, “Why?” I said, “Nobody can pronounce it.” Without missing a beat, she said, “If they can learn to say Tchaikovsky and Michelangelo and Dostoyevsky, they can learn to say Uzoamaka.”
source
They can learn
I’ve worked with many exchange programs on campuses, and they still “encourage” Chinese students to choose English names for their stay in the US. I’ve adopted a rule for myself, I won’t address them with their English name until they’ve told me to stop trying their real name on at least three different occasions. My family is largely immigrant, and while we’ve never had this problem, I don’t think anyone should have to change who they are when them find a new home, even a temporary one. So far, only two exchange student actually wanted to keep their English name, and one of them, Alice, had had Alice for a nickname since she was little.
Don’t know if it’s okay to add this here, but I used to work with a Chinese woman who had changed her name to Angelina for the sake of ease. When she first told me that was what she’d had to do, I asked her for her real name and if she minded me calling her that. She looked so frikkin happy, and it only took about two minutes for me to say it right. It’s not that people can’t pronounce these names, it’s that they won’t. It’s lazy and it’s rude.
It’s also RACIST.
Say ‘racist’.
They pronounce Tchaikovsky and Schwarzenegger just fine.
^THANK YOU. Babies of color,
MAKE THEM SAY YOUR FUCKING NAME. ALWAYS.
ALL OF THIS
This just always reminds me of my friend Chaim who gets it pronounced like chain, but with an m. ALWAYS LISTEN TO PEOPLE AND TRY TO PRONOUNCE IT.
Yes, some languages have different phonemes, no one’s going to get too upset if you actually cannot form the right sounds, but at least give it a shot!
GOD THE CH IS WHY I STOPPED GOING BY MY MIDDLE NAME
Let me guess, Channah? Chavah?
But note, they also pronounced Chaim’s vowel wrong, not just the chet.
So I’ve got two coworkers whose real names are Chaim and Chana, but I didn’t know that for years because they’d been going by Charles and Hannah to make things easier for coworkers who couldn’t say the ch-sound. And by the time I found out it was far too late to raise a stink on their behalf. And okay, I will concede when it comes to sounds that don’t exist in English and that are genuinely hard to say if you weren’t raised with them.
But then a few years back we had a summer intern named Yedidya. Which, as some of you may know, is the non-anglicized pronunciation of the Biblical name Jedediah.
And I heard a coworker asking him “Can we call you Jed?”
And I said “OKAY NO. Look. There is NO REASON why you can’t say his real name. Repeat after me: ya didn’t, did ya?”
Coworker repeated it, bemused.
Me: “Okay, now say that again, and leave out didn’t.”
Coworker: “… Yedidya?”
Me: “See?”
If the sounds exist in your native language, you have no excuse for not learning to say a name just because it doesn’t look or sound enough like anything on your personal mental list of Real Names. And honestly, even if the sounds don’t exist in your native language, you have no excuse for not at least trying.