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Location: Ames, Iowa, United States

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Foreign Names Mispronounced On TV, Purposeful?

I have been criticized by some for my attacks on the efforts of many to allow illegal immigration to continue. What usually occurs is an attack against me personally, for being "racist". Those who attack me thus are all supporters of the Latino infiltrators.
Now, over the years of my life (55) I have noticed one way that many people "get in their jab", so to speak, against those they dislike or disagree with. They mispronounce their names. On purpose.
It's an obvious tactic, at least to me, and it harkens to a "Junior High" mentality.
Having moved out here to Iowa a little less than two years ago, I have heard quite a few mispronunciations of Hispanic names and words. I have taken those situations in stride, as I don't feel the average Midwesterner to be racist against Hispanic people. Factually, I have helped those who don't know how to pronounce words with Hispanic roots. I do it to help, not ridicule. It's the teacher deep down inside me.
So what's my point? I've been stewing on this for a while. But today a Major League Baseball game triggered this diatribe.
Being from Los Angeles, I was a die hard LA Dodgers Baseball fan. I still check on the team's success, occasionally. I was clicking through my cable TV listings, and noticed the Dodgers were going to come on the local cable feed vs the St Louis Cardinals. The feed is from the Cardinals local TV broadcast, with the Cardinals team announcers. (St Louis Channel 11).
The game is pretty much gone, with the Cardinals leading 6-2. A Dodgers player with the last name of Seanez is batting. The announcers call him "Signs". No BS. They pronounced his name "Signs". Both announcers. Several times.
The correct pronunciation is "see-ah-nezz" as best I can put it. Did they do it on purpose? Do they dislike Hispanics? I don't think that's the case. But local Hispanics are probably not happy.
The more paramount example of this had occured a week ago, and then again on Friday night, on FOX News Channel. Sheppard Smith, who is one of the top announcers on FOX, was talking about the "American Terrorist" Jose Padilla.
Shep pronounced the name "pah-dill-ah". Dill, like dill pickle. The actual Hispanic pronunciation is: "pah-dee-ya", as best as I know.
This doesn't seem to be a FOX thing, because other announcers on the channel do pronounce the name correctly.
But it happened twice, with a split of days of at least five or six. During that time frame, somebody could have (should have) told Shep how to pronounce the name.
Is Shep's mispronunciation purposeful? I'm not sure. I do know that I don't stoop to that type of sophomoric BS. When I write something critical about somebody, it's based on what they've done or said. Not on how their name is spelled.

I'll be back

CC

1 Comments:

Blogger Tony Rizzutto said...

came across your site blog surfing. where I went to school 2Ls were Ls. SEANEZ would have been SHAWNZ. French names really get mangled by my English version. my sister teacher had to learn spanish for her english classes. dial 1 for english - dial 2 for change your name to English.

23 July, 2006 22:21  

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