1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Tales from Snowflake Nation, chapter 137

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by hondo, Sep 23, 2016.

  1. hondo

    hondo Well-Known Member

    Mispronouncing someone's name leads to all sorts of bad things.

    The My Name, My Identity Campaign

    Rita Kohli, an assistant professor of education at the University of California at Riverside, told NEA Today – the publication of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union – that overlooking the mispronunciation of a student’s name is a “microaggression” that can sabotage the learning process.

    “Names have incredible significance to families, with so much thought, meaning and culture woven into them,” Kohli says. “When the child enters school and teachers – consciously or not – mispronounce, disregard or change the name, they are in a sense disregarding the family and culture of the students as well.”

    Gee. Disregarding an entire culture because I couldn't pronounce a 12-syllable name?

    Then there's this:

    "Mutilating someone’s name is a tiny act of bigotry. Whether you intend to or not, what you’re communicating is this: Your name is different. Foreign. Weird. It’s not worth my time to get it right. Although most of your students may not know the word microaggression, they’re probably familiar with that vague feeling of marginalization, the message that everyone else is “normal,” and they are not."

    How We Pronounce Student Names, and Why it Matters

    I have a first name and last name with unique spellings. The last name, though one syllable, has a unique pronunciation. Never got me all lathered up.
     
  2. da man

    da man Well-Known Member

    My last name is constantly being misspelled and mispronounced. I'll sue them all!
     
  3. TheSportsPredictor

    TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

    Guess it's settled then. You guys speak for her and everyone else. No big deal for you = no big deal for anyone.
     
  4. Mr. Sunshine

    Mr. Sunshine Well-Known Member

    #predictable
     
  5. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    One of the key ways in Chinatown that they showed what an asshole Noah Cross (John Huston) was is that he wouldn't pronounce Jake Gittes' (Jack Nicholson) name correctly.
     
  6. amraeder

    amraeder Well-Known Member

    Yeah...if you're a teacher, you REALLY shouldn't be mispronouncing a kid's name consistently. You do it at the start of the school year, fine. But if you don't fix it? Yeah, you're the asshole.
    The kid will rightly assume you don't give a fuck about them if you can't be bothered to get their name right.
    This seems like it shouldn't be controversial. If you're teaching kids, you need to get their name right.
     
  7. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    I wish we had more minorities here. Then maybe you would get it.

    We used to have a guy -- what was his name, oh yeah, Bodie Broadus -- who was both black and gay. His voice is really missed in times like this.
     
    Mr. Sunshine likes this.
  8. StaggerLee

    StaggerLee Well-Known Member

    What about if you're a teacher and your name gets mispronounced all the time by students, as well as other faculty?

    Poor people these days, just looking for things to offend them.
     
  9. MTM

    MTM Well-Known Member

    When I played youth baseball in the mid-1970s, I had a coach who used a variation of my last name -- like calling someone Goldberg instead of Goldstein. I just figured he was an anti-Semitic asshole, and it reflected more on him than marginalizing me.

    Is it too late to sue him for micro-aggression?
     
  10. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    I liked your post. No, it shouldn't be controversial. Mispronounce someone's name once, or better, ask how to pronounce it because you can't tell? Fine. Nothing malicious there. Anyone who has a hard-to-pronounce name is going to be used to that, anyhow.

    Don't make the effort to get it right from there on out? Not cool.
     
  11. TheSportsPredictor

    TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

    You said his name wrong.

    It is Bodie_Broadus.

    #offended
     
    Double Down likes this.
  12. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member



    Where's A-A-Ron?
     
    jr/shotglass, HC and dixiehack like this.
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page