Getting Over Herself Was Never Really An Option
The last person I had to correct for the misspelling of my name was someone from my own employer, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
So writes journalist – and, it seems, attention-seeker – Tahlea Aualiitia:
I was invited to join a panel on representation in pop culture by the ABC News Channel earlier this month, and because the name super (the strap with my name at the bottom of the screen) was added during production, I wasn’t aware my name was spelled incorrectly until after the interview had finished and I was informed by my family and friends.
Faintly ironic, perhaps, at least if you squint. But as claims of victimhood go, and as a basis for an article on how terribly oppressed one is, it needs a little work.
Typos happen and I understand how a slip of the finger on the keyboard turned my surname from Aualiitia into Auakiitia.
Ah, forgiveness. How refreshing. An apology was forthcoming, too, so I’m sure we’re all ready to move on.
But while it was the first time I had done a TV interview, it wasn’t the first time I had seen my name spelled wrong in the media.
Scratch that. Incoming.
Just a month ago, my name was spelled incorrectly by a producer in my own department, the Asia Pacific Newsroom.
Yes, another misspelling of a phonetically unobvious Samoan name. That’s two whole times. A scarring experience, it would seem, one that “can have big impacts among communities that often don’t see themselves reflected in the media.” “I knew I had to call them out,” says Ms Aualiitia, rather proudly.
The next morning, I sent an email to my manager asking to write this piece.
Selflessly, of course, for the greater good.
It’s no coincidence I’m speaking up about this during the latest wave of the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s hard to explain what racism feels like to someone who has never experienced it.
Oh, come on. You knew it was time for some bizarre dramatic ratcheting.
For me, it feels like walking around with a big target hanging around my neck.
Someone misspelled her name, you see.
You don’t know where the next attack — verbal, physical or systemic — might come from, and lived experience means you know it has to do with the colour of your skin.
Systemic name misspelling. It’s a thing now. A racist attack.
And when you’re on a public platform like national TV or social media, it feels like that target triples in size.
A sense of proportion is not, I fear, Ms Aualiitia’s strong suit.
We’re then informed, pointedly, that some people can be obnoxious on Twitter and that ABC’s Asia Pacific Newsroom, Ms Aualiitia’s current employer, doesn’t at the time of writing have specific “measures” in place to “support POC talent after a media interview.” To punish obnoxious tweets, one assumes. We’re also told that “research from Deakin University in 2019 found that more than a third of Australian media articles reflected negative views of minority communities.” However, we’re not told the particulars of those articles, the actual subject matter, or whether a negative view might therefore be justified or difficult to avoid.
As grounds for a drama of racial victimhood, it all seems a little unsteady, not entirely load-bearing. But apparently, we’re to believe that two occasions of an incorrectly spelled name constitute racial oppression – systemic racial oppression – and a basis for public weeping and some kind of corrective activity. Such is the fearlessness of our heroine in her ongoing fight against racial bigotry.
There are countless times where the POC talent I’ve met have audibly exhaled in relief when they saw that me, a brown woman, was the one interviewing them.
I’ll just leave that there, I think.
Oh, and if the umbrage above sounds a little familiar, yes, we’ve been here before.
Via Rafi.
Heavens, a button. I wonder what it does.
I assumed her name was Karen.
I have an anglophone surname and have also had my name misspelt by the ABC.
Given the fuss, and the claims being made, I suppose you have to wonder whether Ms Aualiitia is every bit as punctilious in her spelling of strangers’ names. Lest she do them permanent emotional harm.
I have a name that gets mangled in computer interfaces because of typeface font issues.
When getting hired or starting some large enough project with people, at some point, I tend to point out that, by the way, I have a name that gets mangled in computer interfaces because of typeface font issues.
And we make certain that the potential typos are checked for, and that’s the end of that.
—And particularly when working with people face to face, the issue never comes up, ’cause it ain’t a personal issue, it’s a particular typeface font issue.
If she hates Western culture, she can go back to her island cave, where everyone knows how to spell her name with fish bones, or is it coconut shells? Oh, that’s right…they don’t have a written language!
Looks to me like her parents started the whole name-calling thing. She should go after them.
My surname is five letters long. It’s a simple name, unlike Aualiitia, and yet you’d be surprised how many people seem to have trouble with both the pronunciation and the spelling. Change the second letter and several not particularly flattering words can be made from it. But the mis-spelling that takes the prize was on a letter from a company which added four extra letters and put umlauts on the vowels. At the time I got over myself and laughed it off. If only I’d known how terribly oppressed I was. I could have been in line for some compensation.
Fake victimhood shouldn’t be a career option.
I honestly don’t know how I survived the occasional mistakes made by others regarding my surname (another five-letter job; we fivers must be particularly open to such intolerable discrimination here)! I guess I’m just naturally strong and brave like that… It certainly never occurred to me that I could gain financial or other compensation via these incidents, so I must be socially thick as well!!!
Samoan you say. There used to be a punk band back in the day called The Angry Samoans. Perhaps they are a bolshy lot?
My surname is five letters long. It’s a simple name, unlike Aualiitia, and yet you’d be surprised how many people seem to have trouble with both the pronunciation and the spelling.
I try to be accurate when spelling and pronouncing unfamiliar names, on principle and as a courtesy, even an ironic one, but Ms Aualiitia does seem to be clawing at the barrel’s bottom. And then some. And when faced with the supposedly life-denting outrage of a misspelled surname – in my case, with no ‘p’ or a missing ‘h’ – I’ve managed to avoid filling my pockets with rocks and throwing myself in the nearest river. Nor would it occur to me to construct some elaborate patchwork article as to why this occasional humdrum error makes me put-upon and entitled to both sympathy and national attention.
I’m funny that way.
Come to America, sweetie, and see how many people can’t pronounce Hugh.
Dear Miss Aquavita
On behalf of all people of privilege everywhere I’d like to apologise for our insensitivity regarding the accurate spelling or pronunciation of your name.
Due to my inherited whiteness I have never had to suffer such indignities and can only imagine the constant trauma.
Sincerely
Theophilus Farquhar-Featherstonhaugh
My name is frequently misspelled, as Marc rather than Mark, even by people replying to an email I sent them. Presumably my lack of fucks given is a reflection of my white privilege.
On that topic, the South China Morning Post ran a long article by Chandran Nair, who is a sort of alternative economist, in which he rails against the evils of white privilege. No comments allowed, natch.
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3090803/white-privilege-dismantle-it-we-must-first-learn-identify-it
It’s full of gems, but one that stands out is: The hijab is perceived as oppressive, while a bikini is viewed as freedom. Apparently the Western sexualised view of wimmin, which may lead to the exposure of limbs on a beach, is more oppressive than making women wear bags on their heads and enforcing this with violence.
There is also a long list of things, from investment banks and large accountancy firms to literature, which are unfair because the best-known examples are Western. Yes folks, your racism prevents Indian accountancy firms from being globally recognised.
He also whines that The belief that solutions to climate change and other global environmental challenges can only come from the research centres, leaders, activists and spokespersons from the West is widespread. An odd contention, considering that, if you believe the worst about climate change (and having seen Nair speak, he does) you’d have thought he’d be more concerned about the lack of leadership on this topic from India and China.
His most significant failure, however, is his failure to account for the global success of non-white nations such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, all of which have developed advanced, prosperous and democratic systems, despite all that white privilege. Japanese and South Korean tech and engineering firms have global reach and both nations are also increasingly culturally significant (eg Korean film getting best picture).
Dear Miss Aquavita…
Ha ha ha ha ha…
My real surname has two common spellings, one vastly more so than the other. Mine is the latter. Until someone famous emerged recently with my spelling, nobody ever got it right. Even then, he’s only famous in certain circles, and people are beginning to forget. I get letters from my bank with the wrong spelling, and they’ve had my name in writing for nearly 50 years.
My heart bleeds, Tallya.
’… that ABC’s Asia Pacific Newsroom, Ms Aualiitia’s current employer, doesn’t at the time of writing have specific “measures” in place to “support POC talent after a media interview.”’
Maybe they don’t consider you all that talented..?
Oh FFS.
spelled wrong
She’s a journalist, you say?
Relevant, and personal.
Also, when I was in high school, I had a Chinese-American classmate named Lau and a different classmate named Lowe. Both surnames were pronounced the same way, but as somebody pointed out, everybody got Ms. Lau’s name right but not Mr. Lowe.
Someone misspelled my name. I no longer “feel safe.” Mommy!!!
It’s amazing how modern leftists are willing, even eager, to publicly humiliate themselves by acting like hurt, helpless children in order to push the leftist agenda forward. You see it all the time now.
It’s beyond ridicule, though, because this is now an accepted tactic of the left. They know what they’re doing.
Be a crybaby. Pretend to be shaken to the core by inconsequential matters. Act as infantile as you can and institutions will cave in to you. It’s a winning strategy.
His most significant failure, however, is his failure to account for the global success of non-white nations such as . . . Taiwan . . .
Oh, that one’s easy.
According to the mainland Chinese—or a section of Beijing, at least—there is no Taiwan, there is merely another of those indisputably anonymous islands just a few feet off the Chinese coast.
What a rant for nothing. I’m a classic WASP and my name has been spelled wrong of decades. My last name, Matthew, usually gets an ‘s’ or a dropped ‘t’ – sometimes both. I used to tell people to spell like in the Bible, but these days I get more strange looks so I usually just let it go.
My first name is Maureen – I realize it is a classic Irish name (I was named after Maureen O’Hara because I was born with red hair, my mother was born in Ireland, but my father loved Maureen O’Hara) but young people are totally baffled by it. Once I spell it for them they still look at me strangely. 28 years ago I bought my house and had to set up various utility accounts. On my water and sewer bill from the City it is spelled Morine, on my electric bill it is spelled Marine and on my phone bill it is spelled Marina. In the early years I tried to get them to change it, but they seemed baffled (because as one young employee told me they don’t get things like this wrong), or they needed reams of documentation to change it ‘for security reasons – we can’t let anyone change their bill!).
Can I have a rant on these obviously biased institutions who are discriminating against the lowly and abused Irish? Where to I go to get my repatriations?
Without giving too much away, my last name is rather common. On occasion there have been other people in my school or class or large company with the same last name. It’s even a word you can find in the dictionary and appeared a couple of times in grade school readers which like it or not gave me some limited attention. Hardly ever seen anyone with phonetically similar name spell differently except a very few times with Dutch or South African (Dutch). Any moderately educated English speaking person would wince at spelling it that way. Never had a problem with anyone misspelling it…except once. When trying to make a hotel reservation in West Virginia, a place I may note where the name is more common than most other places. I had to spell it out for the girl taking the reservation about six times. It was like a Monty Python skit. I would swear she was doing it on purpose though for what purpose I couldn’t say.
It’s as if she is announcing to the world, “don’t hire me, I’m trouble”.
And somehow, all of us wypipo are “fragile.”
What they call fragile, normal people call competent.
Accomplishment does wonders for your resilience.
My name is frequently misspelled, as Marc rather than Mark, even by people replying to an email I sent them. Presumably my lack of fucks given is a reflection of my white privilege
My surname is “de Haan”, which is invariably spelled as “Dehann”, even when people have it spelled out for them letter by letter. I tell them “DEE EE SPACE CAPITAL AYTCH AY AY EN”. I tell them “DELTA ECHO SPACE CAPITAL HOTEL ALFA ALFA NOVEMBER”.
It doesn’t matter. No matter what I say, “aan” invariably becomes “ann”. I’ve even had people look at the “ann” they’ve written down, have them read it back to me, and they read it back “alfa alfa november, like you said”.
It’s simply something English speakers do. The spelling is uncommon, so they mentally map it to a more common ‘correct’ spelling. They don’t realize they’re doing it.
On my university diploma, my name is listed twice. And it’s spelled two different ways. I’ve had people look at it for two minutes before realizing that the spellings are different.
When someone does get it right, they usually have a Germanic surname.
It’s mildly annoying, especially when trying to deal with computer systems that won’t allow me to enter my proper name because the entry operator misspelled it.
And don’t get me started on what having a space in your last name does to computerized sorting algorithms. After spending five minutes fruitlessly looking for me in the their database, they will finally humour me and look under H rather than D, and hey, there you are, how did you do that?
But you can tell I’m white, because I don’t see racist oppression in this. If only I wasn’t Caucasian, I could enjoy the seemingly never ending micro aggressions directed at me every day.
It’s as if she is announcing to the world, “don’t hire me, I’m trouble”.
It’s a teachable moment–only not the one she thinks it is.
Ah, forgiveness. How refreshing.
It would be.
“I knew I had to call them out,” says Ms Aualiitia, rather proudly.
Bad hiring choice, right there.
MC: My name is frequently misspelled, as Marc rather than Mark, even by people replying to an email I sent them. Presumably my lack of fucks given is a reflection of my white privilege.
Funny: I’m the reverse. And with an uncommon, 5-letter surname, I’ve had the misspellings happen at both ends from the time I entered the school system prior to my fifth birthday. And despite the name being the content of my main email address, and obvious by signature, it’s still happening fifty years later. Even when people copy it directly from my driver’s licence. If you don’t eventually get inured to that happening constantly to something that’s literally the core of your external identity, that’s on you.
People in general can’t spell well, unless they put in effort to learn. The ubiquity of spell-checkers had rendered that unnecessary, and it shows.
Bad hiring choice, right there.
Judging by what I’ve seen of her work, Ms Aualiitia, doesn’t seem especially gifted or distinctive, at least not in her chosen field. Presumably, she believes that she can compensate for any shortcomings of insight and grammar by being needlessly captious and pretentiously agonised.
Thing is, there will always be self-flattering mediocrities who try to make race their schtick – their go-to leverage – and then use it to chide and browbeat others, often fatuously or out of recreational spite. The problem we have at the moment is that such people aren’t laughed out of the room when they try it on. Instead, the odds are good, very good, that their vanities and obnoxiousness will be indulged and rewarded, thereby encouraging more of the same, only louder and bolder.
As above, for instance.
The whole thing gets extra lols because the ABC must be the most Woke organisation in Australia.
My surname normally gets an unwanted “e” inserted. My nickname at work became Ned, for “no e damnit”.
Spelling of my last name, most people have no problem with, but it does happen somewhat regularly. Pronunciation, that is a whole different matter. I’ve had is spoken incorrectly so often that I only notice when people say it correctly now. Hell, I even received my nick-name because a supervisor could not pronounce my name. Have had my nickname for almost 35 years now. One day I will have to go to Scotland, where my surname originates, just to see if I’ve been saying it correctly. Here in western Canada, I have only met two others with the same last name.
Years ago, I contributed to a book on universities, edited by the [failing] New York Times education editor.
I received a copy for my troubles, and I, a sprat of a college journalist, eagerly turned to the acknowledgments for an ego-boost.
They misspelled my last name.
No big surprise there; it’s a German name that regularly gets the treatment. Usually, they double the L at the end, which is a weird flex, but okay.
They didn’t do that. They completely butchered it. Got the first letter, but after that a kitten must have trotted across the keyboard to get them rest.
But get this: They misspelled the first name, too.
Willem, not William.
I never had my first name — a fairly common one at that — given that treatment, and in a book published by a major publisher, and (presumably) edited by a major New York Times writer.
Now, of course, I should have taken that as a sign and changed my first name, but that bastard Willem DaFoe got to it first.
This, to warm the cockles of the most stone cold hearted….
https://twitter.com/kwilli1046/status/1252385084042145792?s=20
“support POC talent after a media interview.”’
Support for POC AFTER a media interview? What, a cup of tea and a soothing “there, there, you were wonderful, darling”? Which, of course, is what all the Pale People are treated to
I’ve had my name misspelled by my paid-out-of-pocket psychotherapist, and I got over it by the time I finished reading what he wrote.
My first name is Maureen – I realize it is a classic Irish name
A sworn to be actual occurrence was when Barbara Paxl;aasdajdkhfvcpoqafncriofn[pwski called in to the Sons Of Poland, or so, to order tickets for their upcoming event.
After a bit of a pause the fellow on the other end finally asked her how that name was spelled.
Pee Ay Exe El—
Oh, no, no, of course I can spell Paxl;aasdajdkhfvcpoqafncriofn[pwski, how do you spell that other name?
As I’m sure she’s also an ardent feminist, she should see positive aspects in the mispelling of her surname as part of the subbersive struggle against the patriarchy. This is no doubt a cause for celebration.
Uncommon Hebrew forename which sounds very like a much more common Hebrew forename; very rare Celtic surname with at least a half-dozen legitimate variations.
I’d be better off going Samoan.
All my life, whenever someone has had to call out my last name, I’ve experienced “the pause.” When new teachers would take roll call, I could predict when my name was next, even if I didn’t know the other kids’ names in alphabetical order. They’d get to my name, and … pause. You could see the mental wheels turning. “How am I supposed to pronounce this?” And naturally it gets misspelled and mispronounced all the time.
People always ask me the name’s origin (My version of “Where are you from?” “You’re so exotic!”)
Did I ever feel that I was the victim of systemic oppression? Nope.
The current moment of insane genuflecting to every supposed victim of every perceived slight and the groveling apologies by people who have done no wrong fills me with anger. Especially the apologies on behalf of my race and my people.
My name is frequently misspelled, as Marc rather than Mark, even by people replying to an email I sent them. Presumably my lack of fucks given is a reflection of my white privilege.
Ditto. I have friends who still write “Darlene” and I’ve received email replies “Dear Ms. Glick”
Both I chalk up to the fact that “Darlene” & “Glick” are more common spellings than “Darleen Click”. My spleen would have been completely destroyed years ago if I vented it each time someone misspelled or mispronounced my names. Geez.
…if I vented it each time someone misspelled or mispronounced my names. Geez.
Ms Aualiitia’s attitude doesn’t strike me as a healthy one or likely to result in a happy life, unless happiness is to be found in self-preoccupation, petty malice, and games of domination. More to the point, it’s tiresome for, and insulting to, anyone drawn into her ego’s orbit.
BTW – we named #4 daughter “Siobhan”. Pronounced “sha-VAWN”.
#3 was with some new acquaintances and they were sharing about their families when she named her sisters. One of them noted #4’s name “Oh, you have a black sister?”
when they saw that me, a brown woman, was the one interviewing them.
Grammar is hard.
When I want to fuck with the precious types (much more frequent now than previously) I tell them I’m from Gilly gilly Osenpfeffer-Katzenellenbogen by-the-sea. Some of the older ones get, the newly minted sort of glaze over.
“Oh, you have a black sister?”
That would be Chevonne. I went to high school with one.
Ah, another Thompson fisking.
I need a cigarette.
I need a cigarette.
[ Peers over spectacles. ]
Who knew Andy Warhol & Robin DiAngelo had a child?
And, these days, racist.
“Oh, you have a black sister?”
Speaking of funny black names, did you hear about the young black woman who was killed by a train when she dumped down to the tracks to retrieve her dropped cell phone? Her first name was felon. Did her mother think that was more stylish than “thug”? 🙂
Like Ted S., I also have a long Germanic surname, and in my case it’s similar to a more well-known one whose bearers include a particular well-known wealthy family, such that people constantly confuse my surname with that one (or any number of variations thereof). In short, if I had a nickel for every misspelling and mispronunciation of my surname, I’d probably be richer than that family. It’s gotten so that I find it unusual, and worthy of (joking) comment, when someone does actually get it right the first time.
And that’s all just in English. Then there are the myriad misspellings of it in Hebrew too… I just had to get my son’s school to reprint a certificate for him because there were three, count them three, spelling mistakes in his surname.
Anti-Yekke (German Jew) prejudice, I tell you. Wonder if I can get in on the same
scambusiness opportunity as Ms. Aualiitia?Five letters, one syllable.
Yet my last name is misspelled and mispronounced almost all the time.
The psychic pain must be why I drink so much.
My name is unusual but easy to pronounce and perfectly phonetic in its spelling. It never occurred to me to be angry, much less angrily political.
When my first short story was published in a Canadian magazine about twenty years ago, my name got misspelled twice. In two different ways. After having sent them an electronic file of the story that had the correct spelling in it. All I could do at the sheer level of ineptitude was laugh.
Miss Aualiitia has evidently never heard of Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
When my first short story was published in a Canadian magazine about twenty years ago, my name got misspelled twice.
Isaac Asimov hated it when publishers would misspell his name, but never never blamed it on antisemitism.
Another white-supremacist, boogaloo, hatey hater caught.
David, you mentioned that you have subscribed to something called Parler.
Apologies if someone has already pointed it out, but Vox Day just posted on one of their terms and conditions:
“14. You agree to defend and indemnify Parler, as well as any of its officers, directors, employees, and agents, from and against any and all claims, actions, damages, obligations, losses, liabilities, costs or debt, and expenses (including but not limited to all attorneys fees) arising from or relating to your access to and use of the Services. Parler will have the right to conduct its own defense, at your expense, in any action or proceeding covered by this indemnity.”
https://voxday.blogspot.com/2020/06/parler-is-trap.html#comment-form
I suspect that Parler is not long for this world.
My first name is the same as one of the top 10 universities in the world, a name that pretty much conjures up visions of classic Ivy League, old school ties, rivalries with Yale, etc.etc.etc. Yet literally half the time I have to give my name for identifying drinks or orders or whatever, I hear Harbor, Arbor, Haywood, Habbard, Harbard, Harpoon*, Harward, Arwood,et al. So is there something non-obvious about my name I’m not aware of? And how can I monetize these mistakes for my own ill-gotten enrichment?
*my favorite mistaken identifier.
https://legal.parler.com/documents/useragreement.pdf
David, you mentioned that you have subscribed to something called Parler.
My Parler feed is here. I use it chiefly, almost entirely, to direct people to the blog. (I used to have a Gab account for the same purpose, but that was scarcely worth the effort.)
Fine, David.
[ Peers over spectacles ]
You mean yours, right?
Get a grip, Aualiitia. Unfortunately, my name is never mispronounced or misspelled.
Do you know how many ways there are to misspell my last name? Kramer, Crammer, Craymer. Anglophone oppression. Time to riot.
Well, hello Mr. Cramer! Much appreciation for your book “Armed America” and for your blog.
You wouldn’t have thought that there were that many ways to misspell a four-letter surname, but the majority of people automatically write ‘Simms’, even though I invariably say ‘It’s Sims with one M’. I’ve also had Symes, Syms, Symms, Simes and (my favourite, Sins.
It made me nostalgic for my maiden name, Goldwater: something I never thought would happen (it was a target for horrible nicknames at school), but at least that was almost impossible to spell wrongly. Or so I thought, until the Oxford telephone directory listed me as ‘Coldwater’…
A sense of proportion is not, I fear, [her] strong suit.
That–massively, that.
It’s a princess-and-pea story, but such a princess!
Last night I watched the Talk to Her DVD with commentary track in Spanish. When Almodovar mentioned Antonio Carlos Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes, and Elis Regina, the subtitles gave them as “Jovin,” “Benicio Morales,” and “Ellie.” Later the name Caetano Veloso came out as alphabet soup. And k. d. Lang was “Katie.”
Evidently the subtitler was listening and typing along fast as he could to keep up — much as a chiron-typist does for a live tv interview. The musicians in Almodovar’s film are beyond famous, legendary. But they fell to the subtitler’s narrow range of reference and need for speed. Hap happens.
So too for Miss Journalist McJournalistface. Systemic racism my foot.
Whilst I enjoy any reason to bash the hive of insane leftists that “our” ABC is, I can empathise. Having heard that my picture would grace the sports pages of our local paper, The Hawkesbury Gazette, I felt that as an 11 year old wicketkeeper I had made it. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered my name crudely misspelt. I too have been a victim to our racist media, intent on destroying young male wicketkeepers., the most marginalised of sportsmen..
Clause 14 would send me running away as fast as I could. However, lack of anti-social media hasn’t left a great void in my life anyway.
And just to clarify, that was in the 1980s, the glorious peak of my sporting career!
yes, we’ve been here before.
And once again
If you’re a sixth-generation Australian, you might as well roll a die for whether your name will be spelt McKenzie, Mackenzie, or Mac Kenzie. The multikulti playgroup isn’t for the likes of you.
If you’re a first-generation Australian, you should complain to the management if somebody misspells your vowel soup name. Because what is Australia but a hotel, and what are Australians but hotel employees whose deference you’re entitled to – the customer is always right.
As actress Uzoamaka Aduba’s mum said: “If they can learn to say Tchaikovsky then they can learn to say your name too.”
Most of us can’t spell Tchaikovsky’s name, and we can only (approximately) pronounce it because he’s Tchaikovsky. Who the hell are you?
What extraordinary entitlement. What a way to give a child a superiority/inferiority complex. They‘ll learn my name. I’ll make them know who I am.
The writer Eric Zemmour, an assimilated Frenchman of Berber Jewish ancestry, talks about how the French bureaucracy until the 1970s used to stir the melting pot by making it difficult to register a child’s name that wasn’t in the standard calendar of name days for saints and historical figures.
In today’s terms, by refusing to register a child as Aisha, the town clerk was erasing the child’s culture and perpetuating a shameful colonial legacy. The poor girl had to go to school as Anne or Alice, and therefore never experienced the delicious trauma of having her name mispronounced or having people assume that foreign habits went with her foreign name.
Zemmour brings up these activist studies where the same CV is submitted under a French and a non-French name, to prove that French employers are backward and hateful. He argues that this gets it backwards where the failure of assimilation lies – parents giving their child a French name is a small token of the intention to assimilate, and the difference in response rates demonstrates how a small gesture, the removal of an ostentatious sign of attachment to non-French norms, goes a long way in being accepted in a new country.
This sums up Australia’s farcical ABC in one story. A woman from a culture whose people were bashing each other’s heads in before eating the remains while simultaneously, the European Enlightenment was underway – presumes to whinge about the spelling of her ridiculous name. And while her snout is in the trough of taxpayer funds, gobbling furiously. We call upon the government to momentarily suspend workplace laws – if only for 5 minutes – just so that this petulant little strumpet can be given a damned good slap.
[…] and (my favourite, Sins.
“Sue Sins”, your stripper/porn name. ;-p
Off topic:
A couple months back I posted a link for the Stratford Festival’s COVID-19 Shakespeare Film Festival. There have been some awesome productions featured (King Lear and the Tempest were particularly well done). Hamlet is about to expire on July 2nd. It’s also very well done.
The only problem I had with it was the actor who played King Claudius is the spitting image of a young Benny Hill, so every time he came on stage Yakety Sax started playing in my head and I waited for him to do a camera-aside-mugging à la Benny Hill.
Here’s the link to Hamlet. King John and the Adventures of Pericles are also currently available.
When I got married, I wondered what to do with my surname.
I wasn’t willing to completely let go of my surname (let’s call it, ‘cat’), as I felt a kinship with that heritage. Plus, I had a publication history that I wanted to keep consistent with future ones. BUT I also wanted to take on my husbands name (let’s say ‘dog’), and have the same name as our children.
As a compromise, I changed my surname name to ‘dog cat’ (and my publication name would go from ‘J E Cat’ to ‘J E D Cat’ to minimise disruption there.
My goodness, the variations! Hyphens frequently popping up where they are not welcome (and were specifically flagged as absent). The most upsetting is the confusion borne by my company email address. Although the tag is ‘Julia Dog Cat’ (as is my permanent signature and sign off) the email has to be written as julia.dogcat@etcetc. So people generally call me “Julia Dogcat”, which sounds even more stupid with the actual names crammed together. It seems so petty and trivial to correct (ackshually there’s a space between ‘dog’ and ‘cat’) so I have to let it go, which surely is the definition of internalised sexism.
In addition to every person having a semi-fluent grasp of the subtleties and pronunciations of all languages, I think people should always be on guard for, nay expect, unusual and obscure name structures or alterations borne of name changes in our patriarchal system, that women are particularly at risk of. To not do so would be denying my experience as a women (a minority). I don’t think it is too much to ask. People could make notes of different types of names in their phones, or make flash cards to check in if they need. It doesn’t have to be hard.
Jordan Peterson emerges briefly to point and say “told you so.”
Most of us can’t spell Tchaikovsky’s name, and we can only (approximately) pronounce it because he’s Tchaikovsky. Who the hell are you?
Well, indeed. Again, the casual self-flattery, the colossal sense of entitlement, is something to behold. And Ms Aualiitia’s pretensions of victimhood have doubtless been practised and repeatedly encouraged.
Ms Aualiitia is now referring to those who via Twitter disagreed with her claims, politely or otherwise, as “trolls” and “hateful crap.” People who “want racism to continue.” No pause for reflection. No possibility that her printed thoughts might be unconvincing and absurdly self-flattering. Instead, there’s just more self-congratulation. While other woke dolts applaud her “courage.”
It’s a princess-and-pea story, but such a princess!
What is it the woke-lings say? “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
Also, lefties project.
The only problem I had with it was the actor who played King Claudius is the spitting image of a young Benny Hill
That would be Geraint Wyn Davies, late of Forever Knight and Robocop: Prime Directives. He’s one of the few things salvaging the woke train wreck that is the Stratford Festival these days.
The same week the Festival went cap in hand to Parliament begging for an $8 million bailout, the Editorial and Literary Director[1] of the Festival emailed me personally to tell me that if I didn’t appreciate their emails advertising increasingly ridiculous woke proselytizing, that the Festival probably wasn’t for me and they would refund my outstanding tickets.
I’ve been a member off and on and a regular patron for thirty years. The Festival’s a lost cause.
[1] What.
the spitting image of a young Benny Hill
I’m now picturing a short-lived comedy-adventure series titled The Rollicking Adventures of Young Benny Hill.
the spitting image of a young Benny Hill
Yakety Sax as the soundtrack to the final fight scene in Hamlet?
Here is one of those generic criminals doing generic criminal stuff.
And here is another.
If only I could monetize my name being misspelled.
If only I could monetize my name being misspelled.
Or monetise neoteny and ludicrous self-absorption.
What bugs me about the story is the conceit that it is a POC problem, as if other pasty-faced ethnic groups did not face the problem. I have a fairly simple Polish last name which has tripped up many speakers, from many nationalities and skin colourations. It was worse in French school as the common french mispronunciation rhymes which the french word for “faggot” – so not a fun time during your teenage years. Bottom line is it happens a lot, to a lot of people for a lot of reasons. I’m not sure how Tahlea plans to fix the problem or whether she has a reciprocal concern about the spelling or pronunciation of other names. I’m guessing it’s all about her.
I’m now picturing a short-lived comedy-adventure series titled The Rollicking Adventures of Young Benny Hill.
I’m ashamed to say I’d probably watch it.
The Festival’s a lost cause.
They lost me when they piously began each performance with the “unceded land, stewards of the land” yada yada.
Purity Spiral
The Rollicking Adventures of Young Benny Hill.
It’s not Benny Hill, but we can get you Mel Brooks doing Robin Hood as a TV series . . .
Accuracy in headlines.
Yes, kidnapping is bad, thus the obvious followup question of Taken by whom?
Oh, waitaminnit, this is The Euphemistic Chronicle, rather than a reliable newspaper of record.
Oh.
So the actual headline is: Another Young Leader Murdered. Afghans Ask: How Many More?.
So that the headline can actually inform those who are reading . . .
“Another white-supremacist, boogaloo, hatey hater caught.”
I like the way he painted one right-handed swastika and one left-handed one. Either he wasn’t sure which was the bad one, or he wanted to make out it was the work of Hindu Nazis.
“So people generally call me “Julia Dogcat””
The racing driver Julio Castro-Neves formally changed his name to Castroneves a few years after moving to America because he kept getting called “Neves”. Or “Castro”. Seems like a sensible reaction to me.
That was only about 20 years ago. Today, he’d probably make a scene about it, with a hashtag and a special livery. (I just love that headline: “Mercedes to race all-black F1 livery to support diversity”. I don’t suppose anyone noticed the irony. Nor that in one of Nazi Germany’s sporting powerhouses lending implicit support to a crowd of anti-semites.)
“While other woke dolts applaud her ‘courage.’”
Oh yeah, that’s another one to add to the list: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Colourblindness is Racism, and Conformity is Courage.
they saw that me, a brown woman, was the one
Seems a bit much to upbraid her employer for not getting “Aualiitia” quite right when she’s unable to spell I correctly.
Fatima ‘Natasha’ Khalil, 24, was a human rights worker…
Checks source – The New York Times – presumes “Islamic terrorist”…
…shaped by two decades of struggle.
Implying, one supposes, that the previous 4 years of her life living under the rule of the Taliban before the U.S. invasion were years of peace and plenty.
You know, I heard that The New York Times was once considered a newspaper?
Re Sue Sins:
Many years ago the Roman Catholic Church had a Cardinal Sin. He was from someplace where “Sin” was not an unusual family name.
We may also salute SGT George Hitler, USA, WW II. When asked if he was going to change his name, SGT Hitler replied, “Let the other guy change his!”
Oh, come on, Karl. Pull my other one! A newspaper, indeed. 😄