Does it make any sense why white people can't pronounce foreign names? I'm not talking about the crazy Eastern European names, I'm talking about four letters and two syllables. A guy literally just asked me how to pronounce the name Ajay (uh-jay). I wasn't appalled at first because I assumed he might have thought that the first A was long (ay-jay). Nope. He asked me if you pronounce it Ar-Jay. Do you see a fucking R in the name you iliterate freak?
This does not just occur with Indian names, it happens with any foreign sounding name. I'm not sure a customer service person has ever gotten my last name right. Granted, it's nine letters and four syllables, but it's phonetic so why is there such a big problem? Chi-Roo-Vo-Loo. Not, Shih-Roo-Vuh-Low. I've come to realize that the issue is not the lack of ability to pronounce these names. They are, after all, in English, the native language of America (for now). The issue is apathy.
People at my office used to call this guy who's name was Sachin (suh-chin) Say-chin and after correcting them scores of times he just gave up and started going by the wrong version. It's lame for him to have given up, after all, it's his identity and once you give that up what else do you have but can you really blame him? How tiring must it be to correct people who you have a relationship with on a daily basis to say your name the right way? The fact of the matter is that a lot of whities in this country (huge generalization) just don't give a flying fuck whether they pronounce shit right or not. After all, it's their country, why should they have to learn our names?
Well, guess what, unemployed asshole in Detroit who is so quick to complain about Goldman Sachs when Ford and GM received bailout money as well (and didn't pay it back), your children will work for mine one day. I would practice my eastern name pronunciation if I were you so you can teach your kids (God knows they won't learn from their white teacher). Start with Krishnamurthy Ramachandran, idiot. (Krish-nah-moor-thee Rah-mah-chun-dran).
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I agree with your claim of laziness on the part of many in attempting to properly pronounce foreign names. Indeed, I recall with great clarity the first person I heard properly pronounce my (and your) last name on sight: it was the head of my high school's Spanish department, whose native language is Spanish. It's amazing that so simple a task is forborne so easily by so many. But there are a couple of other noteworthy aspects of this post.
ReplyDeleteFirst, your link to Reason is heartening. It is my favorite magazine and among my go-to sources of news and information. I hope the link is not merely a coincidence of argument.
But, your mention of Ford is, I think, mistaken. GM and Chrysler were the companies to receive bailouts, and might properly be ridiculed. But Ford seems to have abstained from the gov't handouts and should be singled out as an exemplar of success in the face of apparently long odds.
-P