What’s with that? SBS have started referring to her as Qian Xun Xue, while Tony Jones on Lateline wasn’t giving her a name at all but referring to her as “the toddler”. “Too difficult to pronounce?” or “spoiling a tragic story by changing the cutesy name and confusing readers”? Would she be “Little Maddie” or whatever by now if she had an Anglo name?
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Its no big deal, as long as SBS and ABC get it right in news broadcasting, as they have done, once her name became known.
I rather liked “pumpkin”, its cute and affectionate, and reportedly derived from the brand label Pumpkin Patch on the child’s clothes, given she was described in early reports as “well-dressed”. Anyone who has bought Pumpkin Patch clothing knows its an expensive up-market line, and gave an early hint that the parents were probably reasonably well off, as they turned out to be.
The real issue is why pumpkin’s mother’s body was not discovered in the boot of her car, parked at the airport, for so long. Did the NZ police not think to look?
Sorry, that should be “parked outside her house”.
If they do have a go, her TV name will probably become “Kianne Sunsway” or “Shun Shooey” or something.
Juanita Phillips on Sydney’s 7pm ABC news bulletin, lead story, referred to the child only as Pumpkin, although she referred to the dead woman by her real name. They could have at least said “the girl who has been dubbed Pumpkin”. I agree Kim that this has xenophobic overtones.
Yeah, pumpkin is cute and affectionate. Which is why the commercial broadcasters stuck with it after the girl’s actual name became known; they don’t want to call her Qian Xun Xue because they fear the risk of alienating a great proportion of their audience who would hear this name and react neutrally or negatively. ‘Pumpkin’ is someone they can empathise with, ‘Qian’ is one-of-those-foreign-people who just aren’t part of their monkeysphere.
“I agree Kim that this has xenophobic overtones.”
Well, I can’t say her name (like I can’t say a lot of words – try and hear me destroy “phenonema”). I suspect a lot of people in non-English speaking countries wouldn’t be able to say my name. It’s a non-issue.
“Pumpkin” was a sweet name to attribute to her (and perhaps one day she might be happy her real name wasn’t all over the papers).
I posted on this yesterday morning when I was exasperated to hear Fran Kelly also calling Qian Xun ‘Pumpkin’. And she said it again this morning. Ian Henderson on 6pm Victorian news is also still calling her Pumpkin.
I do think it is worth discussing this, even though Grace is of course right and there are more serious questions also urgently needing answers. Overall the case reporting has made a big point of the Chinese elements. They don’t interview Anglo MPs about family violence in the Anglo community.
“Pumpkin” was an established meme by the time her name became known. Everyone knew who you meant when you talkd about “Pumpkin”. It’s laziness, not racism, to keep referring to her that way – a bit like the Beaumont Children (Jane, Arnna and Grant, actually), the Wanda Beach murders (Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock) or the Pyjama Girl (assumed to be Linda Agostini).
Mind you, laziness won’t stamp out racism or anything else.
“They don’t interview Anglo MPs about family violence in the Anglo community.”
Don’t they?
No Darlene, they don’t. Not in the exclusive capacity of representatives of their race. I don’t believe Pansy Wong has any parliamentary responsibilities for crime or family issues.
Of course they don’t. When do you read stories about “Anglo man rapes woman” and Anglo MPs being asked about whether this is representative of some huge problem among the Smiths and Joneses.
If anyone here does know how to pronounce it, I would be grateful for some phonetic spelling pls.
I agree with Kim that there are “Maddie” overtones to this — and I think the persistent Pumpkinisation of Qian Xun Xue is not so much about race as about the nauseating media trend towards making anyone who’s become famous or infamous an instant intimate of the punters, so they’ll feel special and connected, as with the women’s mags referring to any and all famous Jennifers indiscriminately as “Jen”. I think the Maddie and Pumpkin references are connected with the conventions of celebrity culture.
BTW, did anyone read the, to me, truly shocking news that there is already talk of a Maddie Movie? And is anyone else as nauseated as I am by this rush to fictionalise, populise and capitalise on a tragic story that hasn’t even finished yet?
Penny Wong, Laura.
Pansy Wong, Mark, NZ MP. http://www.national.org.nz/MP.aspx?Id=38
“..they don’t want to call her Qian Xun Xue because they fear the risk of alienating a great proportion of their audience who would hear this name and react neutrally or negatively.”
Rubbish Jobby. Pumpkin’s name is really difficult to pronounce properly, as are many chinese names for us non-chinese, and the media is simply giving us an easy handle to go on with.
Many chinese people themselves acknowledge this by choosing to use an anglo name in their dealings with non-chinese speakers. Its hardly a demonstration of our xenophobia if the chinese do this themselves voluntarily. Its more a demonstration of their good manners.
People need a quick handle to enable them to discuss this issue, and stumbling around with a difficult chinese name is just a waste of time. How many people on the supermarket queue have you heard talking about Qian Xin Xue?
Can you pronounce her name properly and fluently? I can’t. Maybe Kevin Rudd can.
People are talking about “pumpkin” and most of what I have heard is very sympathetic about the abandonment of a tiny little girl in a busy railway station, chinese or not.
Neither can I Darlene, but if I were a media broadcaster I would make sure I could. And that’s the point: these little things add up.
Same goes for Muslim names BTW.
Yes, but she hasn’t had any choice in the matter.
Oh sorry, Laura. I jumped to the conclusion that they’d interviewed Senator Penny Wong.
“…I think the persistent Pumpkinisation of Qian Xun Xue is not so much about race as about the nauseating media trend towards making anyone who’s become famous or infamous an instant intimate of the punters, so they’ll feel special and connected..”
But I do agree you have a point here Dr Cat.
“BTW, did anyone read the, to me, truly shocking news that there is already talk of a Maddie Movie? And is anyone else as nauseated as I am by this rush to fictionalise, populise and capitalise on a tragic story that hasn’t even finished yet?”
Absolutely…yuck. Vultures.
Mark, I think they are somtimes asked about individual cases (e.g. Anita Cobby). Generally, you’re right they don’t usually. This is an issue of male violence/domestic violence etc, which absolutely transcends race.
Sometimes we can look for racism and other things where they don’t exist. Reminds of that episode of Extras (sorry if that sounds flipplant, but it makes a good point) in which Andy tells Maggie she has a hate rating of 9.5, which is one more than Hitler’s after she answers his fake questions “wrongly” (e.g. that she’d rather see Brad Pitt naked than Sir Trevor McDonald).
But if the media bothered to get these things right, consistently, then people WOULD be able to pronounce her name properly, and other Chinese names too.
But if we could pronounce their names they would not feel obliged to do so (albeit many enjoy having an anglo name: their choice).
There definitely is racism, Darlene, or at least gross insensitivity, when “leaders” of “minority” communities are asked to explain the actions of one person as if it is somehow representative of that community generally.
Laura: Can’t blame the journalists for talking to Pansy Wong. She has embedded herself in this story and managed to be present for every tiny development in the case. Except for the police-only stuff that is.
Pansy’s nose has detected something that will translate into a higher profile and continued votes.
BTW I haven’t heard the PM’s usual “running commentary” on this story. Does he not care?
Grace, with all respect:Chi-en. It’s really not hard. Particularly once you’ve heard someone else do it.
No. Not all of the media is doing this. The ABC and SBS by and large aren’t doing it. The commercial channels are doing it because ‘pumpkin’ is cute and keeps the emotional involvement levels high.
Quite a few. I live in an area with a high proportion of Chinese speakers, and those that don’t speak Chinese can at least learn how to say Chi-en. We might not do it perfectly, but at very least we try.
If her name were Sharon or Vanessa she’d be known by that name. But a lot of anglos simply don’t empathise with people who have a ‘difficult’ triple bunger name.
If her name is too hard to say and no-one could really even be bothered to try, then I sincerely hope there’s a dramatic reconsideration of the motives of the mediafication of the case – because if you can’t be bothered to try and say someone’s name, how much do you really care?
I don’t think the continued use of the label Pumpkin (a commodified brand name, btw) means that the punters are xenophobes or too stupid to say hard words.
It might mean that some sectors of the media have this low opinion of us punters, though. And isn’t that a familiar thought.
Keysar Trad seems more than happy to speak on behalf of all Muslims when one of his co-religionists is hauled before court, which makes it a matter for said people to define their own responses I suppose.
And that’s by no means universally true, anyway. I’ve taught classes made up primarily of Chinese students and while some do, many don’t. I always ask the students how to pronounce their name (and you get better with practice). It’s just a basic gesture of respect. I’d do exactly the same for anyone with any other name whose pronunciation I was unsure of. A lot of us with difficult to pronounce surnames get annoyed when people who’ve been told or corrected can’t make the effort, and like people who do ask. Same diff.
.
Pansy Wong is the National Party spokesperson for Liasion with Asian New Zealanders.
No she wouldn’t, see my post above: Marianne Schmidt and Jane Beaumont disprove this.
“But if the media bothered to get these things right, consistently, then people WOULD be able to pronounce her name properly, and other Chinese names too.”
I doubt that gandhi, for the population at large. It would take many years of special media emphasis and education, and for what particular purpose? I reckon our linguistic efforts might be better expended in trying to save some of those those aboriginal languages that are fast becoming extinct. Or even learning some english grammar…
Despite Dolly Downer’s ridiculous sneering about Kevin Rudd taking “two years” to learn chinese when he took only “two months” to learn french, the fact is that chinese pronounciation is extraordinarily difficult to master unless you were born into the language or have spent years of immersion in the culture.
“Grace, with all respect:Chi-en. It’s really not hard.”
Thanks Jobby, yes I can say Chi-en, but that’s not exactly how the chinese pronounce it.
It’s a name. We’re not talking about learning how to speak the entire Chinese language.
A lot of Asian people have difficulty saying my name, I don’t tell them not to bother.
By the way, my surname is easy to pronounce for German speakers.
I don’t quite know what this case is about, but it sounds like a rather delicate and disturbing matter, so I’m going to try and tread lightly here. But just pretend you hear a heavier footfall.
Even if you could easily say the syllables “Qian Xun Xue,” (and why should you?), you still could not pronounce the Chinese tonalities properly unless you had some working knowledge of Chinese. Put another way, if you don’t understand some elementary aspects of Chinese (and why should you?) then there is very little chance that you could ever say these words “correctly” to begin with.
And again, why should you? They are words in Chinese. (Even more, are we talking about Putonghua, or perhaps something else?) Chinese is not the language of Australia. Or did I miss something when I went out shopping?
There’s the zany amusing type of multiculturalist nonsense, there’s the aggravating type, and then there’s the kind that asymptotically approaches something a lot more, well, stupid.
I honestly couldn’t say whether you’re argument proves or disproves anything.
The Beaumont Children were known as such because there were three of them. Simple as that. It’s easier to refer to the family name grouping than identify the three separate first names as well.
Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock were at very least identified based on where the murder took place. It’s a far cry from ‘Pumpkin’ which has nothing but an extremely tangential relation to anything going on here.
I don’t speak Mandarin (or Cantonese or any other Chinese dialect, for that matter!), but my understanding is Q is pronounced “ch” and X is pronounced “sh” or “shw” (depending on the vowel following) and each vowel is pronounced separately, so her full name should be pronounced “chiarn shoon shway”.
Feel free to jump on me if I’m wrong
So, people are pretty much saying ‘I can’t say the name perfectly, so I’m not going to bother trying’?
I’ve just talked to a Chinese co-worker, who very firm on the view that, while many people don’t say her name ‘properly’, at least they have the respect and common decency to try.
I can only imagine what she’d do to me if I attempted to call her pumpkin.
How do you say ‘Schmidt’ anyway? or ‘Beaumont’, for that matter?
I wouldn’t have though it was about ‘difficulty’ so much, more just unfamiliarity with the rules of Chinese pronunciation and the relationship between anglicised Chinese script and the sounds one makes with one’s mouth. That’s an issue for newsreaders seeing it on the autocue or script and having to make a wild stab on the spot at the correct pronunciation.
There is a long way to go Gandhi. The media cannot yet pronounce “pool” correctly. It comes out as “pull”. “School”, instead of being pronounced correctly is being pronounced to rhyme with “pull”.
So far this is mainstream stuff. Moving on to trade jargon, the next time the media get the singular of “cattle” correct will be the first time. “Stock route” is pronounced to rhyme with “root”, and so on.
And moving into the terrain of foreign languages, this is the first “Qian Xun Xue” I have encountered. It would be likewise for most of the media.
French has its pronunciation traps for English speakers too. I doubt very much that on the basis of his two month learning experience Dolly would be able to address the President of France in French, as Kevin did with the Chinese President in Mandarin, and receive the compliment that that he spoke the language perfectly.
The French do take pronunciation very seriously.
Steve, at least some of what you’re highlighting comes under the heading of regional variations in pronunciation. I have a friend here who recently moved to Melbourne from Sydney who is very taken with how we say Cassl instead of Caastle, etc.
How to pronounce names is a very different kettle of fish than the question of whether to attempt them at all, which as many have already said, is a basic courtesy. And newsreaders on the third or fourth day of the life of a lead story have absolutely no excuse for wimping out here I’m afraid. Print media journalists even less so.
How do you say Azaria? Oh bugger it, I’ll just call her Matinee.
Indeed GregM. The French aren’t as polite as the Chinese in such cases.
Jobby might be right – people can emphasise more with a “Lil’ Pumpkin” than with a chinese name that they can’t pronouce (if most anglos tried they would come up with “Kwy-Anne Zan Zueade”) or identify with.
GregM, yep. Only last week I saw a sign on a doll in a shop selling xmas decorations. The sign read “Pierre Noel”, so I suggested to the manager that she might mean “Pere Noel”. Then we got into a confused but hilarious discussion about grauves, acutes and cedillas. Exactly.
Cow?
Far be it from me to praise the Packer Puppets on Ch. 9′s Today show, but readers e-mailed in complaining about them still calling her Pumpkin and they explained that for some reason or other Chid welfare didn’t want her real name being broadcast, so they were going to continue to call her Pumpkin, unlike some other TV stations. Do I believe this, though? I don’t know.
Apparently the name of the street where Pumpkin’s mother’s body was finally found in the boot of a car was Keystone Avenue. Oh dear.
“Pumpkin’s name is really difficult to pronounce properly, as are many chinese names for us non-chinese, and the media is simply giving us an easy handle to go on with.”
But they learn our names easily enough, which are probably look pretty difficult for them on first sight. However, the Chinese, intelligent folk that they are, master these difficulties with anglo names. Difficult to pronounce? Or long tradition of refusal to try to pronounce?
When baby Catherine was found in Melbourne, she got a real human name, and baby Joan in Sydney. This poor kid gets called a vegetable. whats so hard about chinese names anyway??? have you seen polish ones?
“If her name were Sharon or Vanessa she’d be known by that name. But a lot of anglos simply don’t empathise with people who have a ‘difficult’ triple bunger name.”
Lack of empathy (if that’s what you want to call it) can hardly be attributed to one group. As I said earlier, I am sure many of us would find that our names would be pronounced incorrectly if we were in another country. I doubt there would be all this hand wringing about it, though, from either side. That’s a good and bad thing.
Which as an adult you’d expect. But a three year year old has different expectations. “Pumpkin” is the sort of nickname any affectionate parent might give to their child.
Then there is the problem of how to address Chinese naming conventions, while addressing the anglophone expectations of their audience.
The Chinese naming convention places the surname, hence Qian, first. However anglophone usage would make it entirely inappropriate to use a surname only when referring to a child, while her given names, Xun Xue, would, in Chinese conventions, usually only be used by her intimates, ie family and friends and therefore it would be inappropriate to refer to her only by her given names. However using her full name, while proper according to Chinese conventions would be inconsistent with anglophone conventions when talking about children where, while the full name is used first, all subsequent references are to the given name only.
In any event the business of the media is to inform the public about a tragedy that has befallen a small child not in educating the public on Chinese language usage.
‘Pumpkin’ is what was written on her top, in much the same way any affectionate parent would address her child as ‘Kmart’, ‘Target’, or ‘Big’ (short for Big W.)
And, Im not sure why, probably in keeping with the clothing label moniker, the police operation in NZ surrounding the murder of Qian’s mother is called Operation Patch. Wierder and wierder.
Lucky for her that she was wearing Pumpkin Patch and not Kmart (Now, Big W or Target clothes then!
Lucky (to somewhat misuse the word) she wasn’t bumped off and put in the boot of the car with mum.
It is her father who is badly out of order here, not a few journalists whose chinese language skills are understandably quite poor.
Couldn’t agree more, SATP, but at the same time I don’t think it’s a matter of either/or.
“The Chinese naming convention places the surname, hence Qian, first”
Well correct me if Im wrong but I think Xue is the surname. The first name is Qian Xun, according to my reading. Given the father’s name is Nai Yin Xue, it can be assumed the reversal has already taken place in this instance, thereby allowing pronounciation to proceed according to western conventions. I still think polish ones are harder, western conventions or no, closely followed by my surname which seems to terrify people.
So to summarise a lot of commenters here – what Kim said in the post. “It’s difficult to pronounce” and “Pumpkin sounds cute”.
Why stop at pronouncing names in Chinese? How dare you gweilos pollute a perfectly good Chinese name by writing it in the barbarous alphabet of foreign devils, instead of using the proper ideographic characters of civilized people? Racists. The nerve of some people, writing their own language in their own country. Don’t you know you no longer have a culture?
“I’ve just talked to a Chinese co-worker, who was very firm on the view that, while many people don’t say her name ‘properly’, at least they have the respect and common decency to try.”
Interesting. Is your Chinese co-worker a visiting Chinese national, or a naturalized Australian citizen? If the latter, why doesn’t she have a name that is recognizable to her fellow citizens, in the culture she has willingly adopted? If her Chinese name is so valuable to her, there’s plenty of people in China who could pronounce it properly, if she had simply had the respect and common decency to remain in the place where her values evidently lie.
Okay, I now feel comfortable in telling the many people who I work with non-Anglo names that I will not be using their actual names but will instead assign them with the appropriate English title of my choosing, along the lines of the naming of cyclones by the BoM.
Hi Bob
Who are you talking to?
You, Bob.
Who is this Bob you are mentioning?
Look, don’t get too upset Bob, you could have been Barry!
Like Mark, I just think it’s about respect. If you make an effort, people will respect that you have done so, they’re not going to tell you off unless they’re of similar intellect and emotional maturity as the people who make fun of non-English speakers who while they are perfectly understandable do not pronounce things exactly as the local English dialect speakers do.
Listen j_p_z, now known as Wal-Mart (I find those underscores a real pain).
Take anything to its illogical conclusion, and presto, you have an illogical conclusion, and in your case a bonus strawman at no extra charge.
For feck’s sake, j_p_z. “Is she a citizen?” What are you, the language police?
Where was it ever required that someone should have a “name that is recognizable to her fellow citizens”? Does Schwarzenegger get a free pass? How about my grandfather – Johann? A former state Minister in Queensland – Heinrich Palaszczuk?
Yeah, those damn foreigner should just go back to where they came from.
I think j_p_z is a little hard to pronounce, so I think I’ll call you ‘redneck’ instead.
Casey, still doesn’t change the point I was making. It just reinforces it. There is all this pious talk about getting her name right but no one has complained about using the wrong name order. Would we not consider it odd if the papers used the reversed word order for Chinese leaders? Zedong Mao and Xiaoping Deng, for example.
As to your comment:
You cannot ever have had any experience with Chinese people who have not learned English. The best I get for my first name from those who have not learned English is “Grey”. Close enough for me but hardly mastering the difficulties of pronunciation. My Chinese landlady last year, with whom I got on very well, never ventured past calling me Mister, pronounced “Meestah”. I did not conclude, as some who have commented here would, by the logic of their arguments, want me to conclude, that her inability to master even my first name, showed any sense of disrespect, or want of sensitivity.
Just to sober up all the pedants, it’s been revealed that Qian Xun’s mum was a blogger:
Pirates of the Caribbean – with the subtitle Axis of Hope.
Refers to comment caught in spaminator.
And in Semester One next year, if I’m tutoring or lecturing in a course convened by Professor Ciaran O’Faircheallaigh (as I have done at times this year and last year), would it really be an acceptable show of collegiate courtesy if I were to constantly refer to him as “Spud”?
Who’s concluding that?
But in this case she is calling you an honorific, which shows, if anything, a surfeit of respect (like one of my students calling me “Doctor Norton” rather than “Paul”). It would be quite another matter if she were to call you “Dude” or “Whitey”.
As it happens, last night I was practicing pronunciation of lines from the original French lyric of The Internationale in the presence of a friend from a French migrant family on her mother’s side. It was with quite some mirth that she informed me that my attempt at “Debout le damnes de la terre!” sounded to her like the French for “up yours woman!”.
I think it needs to be pointed out that “pumpkin” (or “punkin”) is an American term of endearment, similar to “possum” in Australia, so not necessarily solely a reference to her clothing.
Nice of someone to actually notice amid the pedantic navel-gazing. Now, does anyone have any contacts amongst the US MSM (especially LA). This story doesn’t appear to have hit the mainstream news cycle there. Maybe if it does someone will pony up the dickhead.
If that’s what he was happy with, yes. The doyen of the University of Melbourne Arts Faculty for many years Professor O’Hearn, was happy to be called Dinny even though that wasn’t the name his mum gave him.
Quite possibly among her family she was. I would not have known and would not have cared. We all managed to convey our mutual respect through mime and gestures (a smile will take you a long way) but I doubt that amongst themselves they’d ever have seen the need to use my proper name even if they could pronounce it.
There is all this pious talk about getting her name right but no one has complained about using the wrong name order
No it’s about not using her name at all.
Perhaps you need to enunciate a bit better GregM. I find that very unusual that they lose the ability to pronounce ‘g’ by the time they get to the end of your name.
My mother called me Pumpkin when I was young. Presumably it was a term of endearment.
Try reading the original post.
I think, Helen, that term of endearment was chosen specifically because she was wearing that brand of clothing. Presumably if Pumpkin wasn’t a recognised term of endearment in Australia they would have called her something else. Perhaps Poppet.
“Just to sober up all the pedants, itâ??s been revealed that Qian Xunâ??s mum was a blogger:
â??In this world, most of us have a lot of hard times; we struggle for living with exceeding loneliness.
â??If a happy start has to end with pain, I rather I never had those happiness. Therefore, I wonâ??t need to remember those happy moments and those painful experiences.â??
That’s interesting, Ghandi. That’s a lot for that. That’s such a sad comment, and even sadder given what happened.
“And in Semester One next year, if Iâ??m tutoring or lecturing in a course convened by Professor Ciaran Oâ??Faircheallaigh (as I have done at times this year and last year), would it really be an acceptable show of collegiate courtesy if I were to constantly refer to him as â??Spudâ???”
No, it wouldn’t be, but that was funny nonetheless. “Hey Spud, how’s it frying?”.
Pumpkin is a term that’s used for littlies in a lot of places. Pronouncing things correctly is good, but it isn’t proof that a person is empathetic or decent or not.
As has been said numerous times, it’s not about getting her name right, it’s about not attempting to use her name at all.
I did. A little girl has had her mother murdered and been abandoned at a foreign railway station and you’re arguing about what the MSM are calling her? Seriously mate, get some perspective.
Heh heh. Some awfully thin skins around here. Do I sense the discomfort of unpleasant contact with daylight?
“What are you, the language police?”
How is having an opinion congruent with being the police? The course of the discussion has brought up the consideration of racism in what I see as a rather inaccurate context. The foundations of that view are, in my opinion, insane. So what are you, the opinion police? I don’t mind arguing the point with you. Who knows? Maybe I’m wrong. They have a saying about that sort of thing in Missouri.
“I think j_p_z is a little hard to pronounce, so I think I’ll call you ‘redneck’ instead.”
Well that certainly didn’t take long. And how many languages do *you* speak, Mr. Cosmopolitan? Write me a funny little poem in something foreign. I’ve been known to do it here, asswipe. So let’s see your chops. Gambat’te nee! Since you’re not, heaven forbid, a redneck, I trust you understand what I just said without looking it up.
Now we see the violence inherent in the system. Help. Help. I’m being repressed.
You obviously didn’t. The original post is entirely about naming.
Everyone here agrees that the murder and abandonment are horrible – what would further discussion of that prove?
What are you suggesting? That we ignore discussing anything else in favour of stating ‘isn’t it terrible’ over and over again? Can you walk and chew gum at the same time?
Seriously Skribe, come down off the high horse. It’s ridiculous to suggest that everyone who’s commented here isn’t 100% united in agreeing that the child’s situation is tragic and her father needs to be found. What is it you want? 98 posts strenuously agreeing with this proposition? Each one with the rider that there’s nothing else to be said about the whole sorry affair?
Not today, trollboy.
while I’m at it, jpz, before I even read your first comment I knew exactly what sort of claims it would contain. You get called on your schtick far too rarely, imo. And correct me if I’m wrong, but living in America as you do, you actually have very little idea what this is about (or of the realities of everyday Australian life.)
It means – do you best, try hard or endure. And yes I do think “who do you think you are coming over with your name and if you don’t like it go home” completely redneck.
No, I did. I just chose to ignore it.
I don’t think it is my enunciation. When I tried to learn Khmer which, I am told, being a non-tonal language is easier than Chinese, I found that the major difficulty I had was that try as I might I just couldn’t pick up many Khmer sounds because they are not in the English register. Khmers, even many of whom were learning English, had problems in completing English words, especially those ending in “s” (pretty important as a signifier of possession and of plural nouns) because in spoken Khmer you often don’t fully enunciate the word and so they didn’t listen for the end sound. Possibly it is the same for Chinese native-speakers.
j_p_z, Chinese is one of the oldest and largest non-indigenous language groups in Australia. If you travel around our most populous states, such as Victoria and NSW, you will find evidence of the importance of Chinese-Australians to the building of Australia in the substantial Chinese cemetries particularly around goldfield towns and sugar cane areas.
About five kms from Sydney Airport in a very densely populated area there still exist large Chinese market gardens, still tilled by Chinese, and which have just received deserved state Heritage listing.
I live in a an area of Sydney with a very high population of Chinese people. I would say that after Middle Easten people, they are the group most reviled and disliked by everyday people, given what I have gleaned from local politics, and from living and working in this area for a decade.
I note in this context too that the SMH front page article referred to the father “dumping” not “abandoning” Qian Xun Xue. Human beings aren’t dumped. Garbage isn’t abandoned.
Laura: “while I’m at it, jpz, before I even read your first comment I knew exactly what sort of claims it would contain. You get called on your schtick far too rarely, imo.”
Laura, with respect, I don’t believe I have a ‘schtick,’ I think I have a point of view, based primarily on my experiences and observations in life. Since I’m never convinced that my point of view is completely accurate (how could it be?), I find this forum a very healthful place to argue through things. Very often, when people oppose what I have to say, I take it home to think about, and adjust my outlook accordingly. That’s what I find most valuable about this site, and it’s my hope that my somewhat contrarian views occasionally perform a similar service. After all, you don’t believe that your own views are 100% accurate, do you?
“And correct me if I’m wrong, but living in America as you do, you actually have very little idea what this is about (or of the realities of everyday Australian life.)”
It’s quite true that I have very little idea what the actual case is about, but the specific micro-issues that are being raised in the course of this discussion are of general interest throughout Western civilization at large, given the historical currents we now experience. I don’t see why these things can’t be discussed in a wide scope, or, like the chefs of Hoboken do, thrown against the wall to see whether or not they stick.
Jobby: “Not today, trollboy.”
Brave Sir Jobby ran away.
Bravely ran away, away.
When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Brave Sir Jobby turned about,
He bravely, bravely chickened out.
anthony: I think what you’re saying is really rather reductivist, but I’m just too polite to call you silly names about it. There’s all these letters in between A and z, ya see.
An interesting experiment to try then. Give it a good hearty ‘guh’ at the end and see if it works. As with the hearing our own voice on the answering machine phenomena, we’re often not aware how we pronounce things.
The Khmer ‘s’ problem might also be grammatical. If they don’t have an equivalent in their own language they might not see the point in having it in English.
“In modern usage, redneck predominantly refers to a particular stereotype of whites from the Southern United States. The word can be used either as a pejorative or as a matter of pride, depending on context. See also Hillbilly
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redneck”.
j-p-z you said that piece about how you don’t know anything much about Australian multiculturalism, but you do know about the West in general, the last time someone had the temerity to suggest this country isn’t, and doesn’t resemble, ‘Hoboken’, http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-admin/comment.php?action=editcomment&c=170548
Well if there’s a more sophisticated argument there, I haven’t noticed it.
If I thought the precise pronunciation of my name was important I would do that but mostly I don’t see it my role when travelling in foreign lands to teach English, unless I’m being paid to, in which case I would, as I have been trained to, get them to rehearse enunciation.
If you are paying to learn English and you really want to do so then what your opinion is of how English is, or should be, pronounced is pretty immaterial.
And I always thought “redneck” was South African slang for Highlander soldiers…. hmmm.
.
But is it though? While all of the initial reports referred to the girl as “Pumpkin”, that was because at the time her name was not known, and for the want of a name they had to call her something.
Since her name has become known (and we only know her name because the media told us what it is) I have seen on media reports her name used somewhat interchangeably with the nickname “Pumpkin” which is after all the term by which she was first introduced to the Australian public and is also a term carrying a sense of endearment. I can’t remember a single report that has used the word “Pumpkin” to the complete exclusion of the use of her name since her name has become known.
I expect those who created the “Pumpkin Patch” brand chose that brand name on the basis of market research that indicated its brand value based upon the sense of endearment that the term “pumpkin” engenders when used about small children
anthony: ” if there’s a more sophisticated argument there, I haven’t noticed it.”
WAITER: How did you find your steak, sir?
DINER: Why, I merely looked under my baked potato, and there it was.
Yeah agreed. I don’t usually make people place their hand in front of their mouth to ensure they’re making the ‘th’ sound correctly (I’m looking at you British people) but what I’m suggesting is it might be that you’re the source of the problem not them.
Oughts aren’t always is. Personally, I think they’ve got the same right to an opinion on what or how English is or should be pronounced as anybody. It’s not the most effective way to get by but I also know of a few English speaking countries who have their own strong opinions and seem to get by quite well.
Since you have never heard me speak your suggestion is founded in ignorance.
Oh? Which English speaking country can you point me to which has dispensed with the pronunciation of “s” at the end of words to indicate possession and plural nouns. Functional English is not a matter of opinion. It is a matter of learning and applying rules of grammar and pronunciation. Anything else is either gibberish or, at best, pidgin.
The pronunciation of Qian Xun Xue is basically impossible to represent accurately in standard written English, there are not really any direct equivalent sounds. And that is before we even consider the possible variations of tonal inflection.
Lynda is closest to the mark.
Well that’s why I suggested rather than asserted, but you seem awfully defensive about this. Is there an opportunity for reflection being missed?
Cactuses or cacti?
More a case of talking lamb and saying mutton, jpz.
Is it true that there may be a fight over Qian Xun Xue between her maternal grandmother and paternal relatives in NZ?
Anthony, I used to teach English as a second language to Vietnamese and Khmers. I have a very good idea of the problems they have in learning English and particularly with pronunciation. It is a real struggle for them, just as trying to learn Khmer was for me. So no, I wasn’t being defensive, just irritated at ignorant assumptions being made. Perhaps the folly of opining from ignorance could be an opportunity for reflection that you should take. I will, however, reflect on the utility of expressing irritation when I write.
I see though that you are aware that a small number of nouns form their plurals without the addition of the letter “s”. Not really helpful in devising a general rule in order to bring non-native speakers up to some form of functional English to cite that as an example that means that they can dispense with the “s” in all other cases, though, is it?
You are all missing the obvious here. The reason this little girl was called something (Pumpkin) other than her real name is a simple, practical one: she was found abandoned and alone at Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station, and nobody knew who she was; and nobody knew her name.
Initially that’s all anyone knew her as and people got used to it, and liked it, and so the media used it because people immediately recognised who they were talking about.
See? No racism, no xenophobia, no media condescension. Nothing. Only pure practicality (served with a good deal of affection).
I should add that the name was given to her by her carers while police tried to work out who she was.
Yes, I am not sure how far this argument can be pushed. The Meeja and Kids are always a recipe for bad behaviour or madness. Look at Madeline McCann.
The idea that the failure to use her name implies xenophobia is absolutely ridiculous. It is almost enough to convince me that there are people out there who actually want to think the worst about our society. It gives credence to criticism that some sections of society hold a “black armband” view of Australian history.
Furthermore, I am not at all convinced that it is a good idea to bandy a child’s name around in the media in any event. It might be better for the child if she retained some degree of public anonymity.
I wonder what they call the child in fostercare?
Hey possum, come and get a nice lamb chop?
(Bet she’s with a Chinese family).
BTW – the Maddy article was a gross beatup.
You’ll get no argument from me about the trials of learning and teaching a language GregM. And if there’s no possibility that things could have been worked out better with the Chinese lady’s pronunciation, then that’s settled too. As I said, just a suggestion offered.
A very fine point to be made on cactuses/cacti.
You seem to be trying to square the circle between prescriptive and functional English and holding non-native speakers to differing standards to native ones. Functional English, is just that, it’s functional and this is often dependent upon the speaker, the listener, and the context.
If I want to walk around saying oid loike a poi then that’ll get me the nod of approval in Oz, bafflement in most other places and probably a ribbing in London. That’s my choice and I can live with the consequences, just as an American who say you done good has. Functional English, contra prescriptive, has scope for diversity on how things should be said.
I can’t see why a Khmer can’t have an an opinion on how the language is acted out and done, and this need not automatically be “gibberish or pidgin” but rather a characteristic of Khmer speakers of English. It also might not be a priority in their own perceived mastery of the language.
I don’t mean to say that all language opinions are correct in all circumstance or that teachers don’t have a responsibility to teach what’s perceived as standard English but there are indeed opinions on what English is and how it is said and this shouldn’t exclude non-native speakers.
As a badly remembered response to a question as to whether Indian English is acceptable or not – “that would depend if they’re in Mumbai or not.”
Sorry, I’m completely off topic aren’t I?
Glad “Pumpkin” wasn’t wearing “Diesel”.
Anthony, Australia is a rich country. We can do whatever we want. We can pontificate as we please. We can indulge our opinions and think they are important. We can, and unfortunately we do, force them on other people and not have to bear the consequences. It doesn’t matter to us. We won’t be hurt. Our society will look after us.
If you are a Khmer or Vietnamese you don’t learn English in order to have a nice debate “on how the language is acted out and done” you do it to get a job that will advance your prospects in life and to give you a chance to raise yourself out of poverty.
To do that you need to learn English that will be understood by Japanese, by Koreans, by Singaporeans, by Norwegians and by Brazilians and on and on. That is what standard English is.
Khmers and Vietnamese aren’t learning English so that they can:
They are doing it to get a job where functional English skills will just about guarantee you a job, and at a rate of pay three times greater than that of your non English-speaking countryman/woman.
Your comment therefore that:
is grossly ignorant of what functional English is to Khmer and Vietnamese people who want to get a job.
But you live in a rich country. You can hold any opinion you like and force them on others without a thought of the consequences. Unfortunately they have to live with them.
Take the time one day to go and live with these people, not just as a tourist looking at them.
Worse still if the Fcuk label had a childrens’ range and she was wearing something from that.
Xenophobia is alive and well on Aussie TV. You won’t see a Asian or a Muslim on Home and Away anytime soon. But Border Security seems to love them. Not pronouncing a Chinese name however, isn’t xenophobic.
Online at the SMH is this headline
“PUMPKIN POLICE HIT BACK”……
…..now everyone is a pumpkin. Nomenclature – unbearably complex in the MSM, stick to pumpkins and patches and little vegetable police waving carrot sticks. So much better that way.
The elder sister was on 7.30 report (via TVNZ) tonight and had a harrowing story of her own to tell….one young woman and two even younger daughters screwed over by this man. Wonder what they will call him when they get him? I doubt anything much. I think the pumpkinising of Qian was gendered anyway. Had Qian been a boy, doubt they would have called him Pumpkin. Only girls are called pumpkins and honeys and fairy flossies.
Do you have any evidence of this?
Been called honey often, GregM?
What is it with you?
I said “I think”, meaning “in my opinion”…..”in my view”.
And what evidence do you have that it was not xenophobia, gendered naming, or an alien plot to rename our children with vegetable names?
Everything here on this post is speculation, opinion and ideas.
Now that we know what it is, Qian Xun Xue is a perfectly lovely name. ‘Pumpkin’ leaves rather alot to be desired and should be left behind. How many adults really appreciate that they were once referred to as Pumpkin?
“The pronunciation of Qian Xun Xue is basically impossible to represent accurately in standard written English, there are not really any direct equivalent sounds. And that is before we even consider the possible variations of tonal inflection”
That’s the big problem here – you need to know the ideographs ( hanji ) and they have individual meanings and specific pronunciations in specific tones.
Gau can mean nine , dog ,enough and other things- all based on intonation.
Cantonese uses 5 tones commonly and has 9. Putongha has 4 common tones.
Expecting newsreaders to master this is way too much.
Re Mr Rudd- the attending chinese were definitely just giving face – to speak tone perfect chinese is a life’s work.
If you are a Khmer or Vietnamese you donâ??t learn English in order to have a nice debate â??on how the language is acted out and doneâ?? you do it to get a job that will advance your prospects in life and to give you a chance to raise yourself out of poverty.
Hmmm this job thing, never heard of it. Oh wait I have.
To do that you need to learn English that will be understood by Japanese, by Koreans, by Singaporeans, by Norwegians and by Brazilians and on and on. That is what standard English is.
SBS managed it again tonight. I’m sure Anton’s Cantonese pronunciation is not perfect, but hey. Qian Xun Xue is also entitled to some dignity, I think, which “Pumpkin” certainly doesn’t convey.
oops to be continued…
Well I imagine they’d be speaking with a collection of non-standard English speakers and would have to have a bit of flexibility built into their understanding of the language, rather than say “Functional English is not a matter of opinion. It is a matter of learning and applying rules of grammar and pronunciation. Anything else is either gibberish or, at best, pidgin.” I mean what would their employer r/l blurring or their Singlish dropping employer think of this mindset?
I can’t see how this precludes them having an opinion. What kind of a job are they applying for – will there be a grammar standardised test? Is fluency more important than accuracy. Do they need a few repetitive phrases said nicely or do they need to able to get by on a broader range? How long have they got to study? Should they let you know about this or have you decided for them, will this mess up your lesson plan?
Which leads to:
And if they haven’t internalised that there will be some diversity in English, then you’re not doing them justice. This all started when I suggested that there might be a reason for why they were dropping the ‘s’ and you thought this wasn’t worthy of consideration.
This isn’t just an interesting linguistic point, it’s getting to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing and appreciating it – this way the teacher understands what’s going on and if the student does too they’ll be the better for it. It’s a deeply practical consideration and more effective than seeing them as a bunch of transgressors.
I’m sure their poverty doesn’t deprive them of an opinion and besides consequences are what I’ve been banging on about. If a student finds writing a waste of time because they don’t need it for their job then that will have consequences and the teacher should explain that but it’s ultimately their decision.
For the authentic voice of the Cambodian people, you really don’t seem to have done much listening.
Likely to be Mandarin or “putonghua” or, as I prefer to say, guoyu.
She was just referred to just as “the young girl dubbed pumpkin” on the ABC two minutes ago. [insert Prince joke]
I think the precision of the the Chinese name is a bit of a distraction, although SBS is clearly awesome.
The point of names is that they are recognised and if this is done within the limits of the speaker’s pronunciation skills then that’s fine. Being called Ansony is me being called Anthony by someone with Japanese pronunciation – it’s a magnitude different to being referred to that which we will call you because we can’t even be arsed acknowledging your name. This has long historical form whether it was giving Aborigines names, Japanese insisting that Koreans change their names to Japanese, or the ‘boy’ that almost got Bert Newton clobbered by Ali.
There’s not the same degree of malice here but it’s got poor form.
Tony Jones managed her name.
And agree with everything you say in the rest of your comment, anthony.
*Hive mind is easy to pronounce*!
Thanks, MH. I happily stand corrected.
The news reader on Starnews Asia tonight referred to Qian Xun Xue as “the toddler”.
Kim I am over fifty years old. Of course not. What I was called when I was three years old I cannot remember. But from what I have observed of just about everyone I have seen with children up to the age of three is that they will display great instinctive affection for them. They will engage in all sorts of cooing and ga-gaaing when they do this. That’s just what they do. I accept that. I don’t pass judgement on it.
With adult to adult relationships the standard shifts.
I’m sorry that the human race doesn’t live up to your standards.
But then perhaps (since you’ve taken the trouble to take a cheap shot) it’s the reverse.
GregM, I wasn’t meaning to take a cheap shot.
I’m 34. I am still called things like “honey” by strangers, colleagues, superiors. Much too often for my liking.
Darlene was patronised by a commenter on another thread with that term only yesterday.
Quite correct. There are reasons why they drop the “s”. They aren’t the reasons you give. But you are happy to idealise their behaviour without knowing anything about it, creating fictions while you go along.
For a non English speakers English is in some ways easy. It is not inflective. It has a prefernce for short words. Its basic grammatical strutcure is simple. On the other hand it is a nightmare in that it it has, to the non-English speaker, incomprehensible vowel shifts and syllable shifts. Its basic grammatical structure relies upon an endless combination of auxilllary verbs and prepositions, the use of which is so complex and intuitive that there aren’t any useful rules by which to teach them.
That’s just standard English. If you are a native speaker and you have got a basic mastery of that then you can indulge yourself in the unending variations of expression the stanard language allows you.
If you are a poor Vietnamese or Khmer learning English, however, all of that will be beyond you.
.
Yes it does. Poverty is cruel. It deprives you of just about everything. Your opinion is the least of it.
I have never made a claim to be the authentic voice of the Cambodian people. I lived four years amog them and now I have left I am still trying to come to terms with that experience.
But since you have bothered to make that ignorant comment I’ll take you back to the thing that offends me about people like you (and Kim, since Mark will look over these pages and Kim has decided to indulge herself in this discussion)
Pointless, like the last time you raised this line of argument, GregM. By that token, because you’re presumably “in a rich country”, we shouldn’t pay any attention to anything you say either. And how do you know where I’ve lived? (hint – not just in Australia and the US)…
In fact, perhaps as soon as you start discussing what “you” about “people like [us]” we may as well stop listening anyway.
And how do you know where anthony has lived and what his professional experience is? If you asked, you might find out that it’s relevant.
Yes Kim I understand that. I saw the same comment and I was appalled. But I have never made such a comment and it is repellent to me to do so. So it is hurtful to me when I am tarred with the brush of another commenter’s opinion which offends me.
I hope you understand.
Entirely, GregM.
Perhaps then you might drop your references to “people like you” since you can see the error of tarring people with the same brush.
Kim, grow up.
Mark, since you watch for these things, please explain to me what I have done to deserve this outburst from Kim.
Read this you dickbrain. This is an email I got from a friend of mine tonight.
Poun makes a hundred dollars a month in Frizz restaurant. He has sent me five follow up emails
So what are you going to do? Pontificate again?
Greg M, arent you being a little patronising? Proving the point about gendered thinking? Though I dont know the inner workings of the mysterious palace known as LP, I strongly suspect that Mark does not, like some jaded royal vizier, ‘look over these pages’ monotoring his female handmaidens like Kim! How freaking ridiculous!!! LOL!!! Hey Greg M, this is a collective dude. Kim is who you must address in your please for leniency. Alas and alack Greg M – there is no transcendental signifier here to relieve your sufferings.
I dont know about pumpkins, but I tell you some mushrooms have been haunting this site in recent days…..
pleas even!
Then you have not read LP for any length of time.
Lynda Hopgood [11:38am 20thSept]:
Yeah. That’s pretty close …. “Ch’ien Hsun Hsueh” for the Old Believers who still use Wade-Giles orthography; mind you, it’s a bit different in G.R., or in the old Post Office romanization.
Hey, hang on. Somebody mentioned the possibility that the surname and the personal name have already been transposed. That happens all the time to Japanese and to Hungarian names in the Australian news? media. If that’s the case, the kid might then be XUE Qianxun or “Hsueh Ch’ien-hsun” …. or “Shweh Chyen Shwoon” if you like.
Kim:
Let’s hope that even on Larvatus Prodeo, good old racist Aussie-bashing doesn’t try rearing its ugly head again. Otherwise, I’ll just have to have a chunder, hitch my pants up to my beer-belly, pick up my dole, see if I can find any koons and poofs to bash then get to the pub before the f***n’ slopes get on all the best pokie machines …. In fact, a LOT of native-born English-speaking Aussies do pronounce non-”Anglo” names accurately once they have heard it spoken correctly several times. The old-fashioned custom of giving workmates and neighbours familiar and usually informal Enlish names [and nicknames] was neither racist nor ignorant but a universal way of being INCLUSIVE towards the newcomer. The mishandling of unfamiliar names in the formal setting of news media, on the other hand, is completely inexcusable.
anthony: (and Mark and Jobby, too, sorry for getting sharp with you) Hmm, I can see that the way my earlier remark was phrased, being a little too aggressive and tart, would cause annoyance. Nevertheless there’s a rational basis for it.
Personally I’m suspicious of the absolute in human affairs; things should rarely be absolutely x, it’s usually preferable to say there should be a strong tendency towards x, whilst keeping y in mind, and considering that sometimes q is what’s called for. So it is in these matters of culture and names.
All the same, some practices have smoother outcomes than others. It matters where you are, and what your standing is when you’re there. If I go to China and meet with a businessman named Fat-wong, I have a strict obligation to keep my amusement to myself and behave soberly; it’s a regular Chinese name in China, end of story. But if Fat-wong immigrates to an English-speaking country, while he’s certainly entitled to keep his name as it is, it’s still not very sporting or helpful for him to spend the rest of his life seething and calling people ignorant racists every time they giggle. It’s a different country, he made the decision to move there, guess what, places outside of China are not China.
People used to have (or at least in my experience they did) a practical common-sense approach to most of these things. Multiculturalist values reversed a lot of those polarities; foolishly, I believe. It wouldn’t matter all that much if immigration were a rare and occasional thing, but in an age of mass immigration it’s potentially calamitous. People generally have a human tendency to do what’s easiest and what they can get away with. If you make it too easy for them to keep their old ways and remain incomprehensible to the mainstream, then more and more of them will choose that option, with fairly predictable results.
There’s a great question-and-answer bit in The Mahabharata:
“What is never noticed until after it has departed?”
“Health.”
The same might be said of cultural cohesion, and we might miss it when it’s gone.
Excuse me while I giggle. But anyone who has ever had anything to do with a collective, or been a member of one, knows perfectly well, unless none of their physical senses are operational, that there is always a kingpin, or two, in a collective, who are invariably male, except in all female collectives, which this one is far from being, but the main point stands.
It’s sort of close-ish, Graham. For example, ‘ch’ in English can be pronounced in a number of ways without changing its meaning. Specifically, the position of the tongue (at the front, middle, or back of the mouth) isn’t particularly important, most people would regard any difference as just regional accent variations on the same basic phonetic unit.
But in Mandarin it makes a big difference. Think of how different the (Pinyin) pronounciations of ‘j’, ‘t’, ‘q’, ‘ch’, ‘x’, ‘sh’, and ‘zh’ are to a Mandarin speaker, yet how difficult they are to both pronounce and distinguish for a (non-Mandarin speaking) native English speaker.
Like I said before, there really aren’t direct phonetic equivalents for many Mandarin sounds in standard English.
And there’s a good reason the Wade-Giles system went out of fashion. Pinyin is much more functional.
Just to clarify, I put the definition of “redneck” up because it’s a tad hypocritical of people to get upset about the supposed use of implicitly racist terms and then use an explicitly bigoted (and classist) term. Of course, some folks down yonder embrace the term “redneck”, but if people are upset about certain uses of language, please be consistent.
“Excuse me while I giggle. But anyone who has ever had anything to do with a collective, or been a member of one, knows perfectly well, unless none of their physical senses are operational, that there is always a kingpin, or two, in a collective, who are invariably male, except in all female collectives, which this one is far from being, but the main point stands.”
Males in a collective? Queenpins in a collective are difficult enough. Please use meeting procedure, people.
“I strongly suspect that Mark does not, like some jaded royal vizier, ‘look over these pages’ monotoring his female handmaidens like Kim! How freaking ridiculous!!! LOL!”
Crikey, a handmaiden? I can’t even sew.
Cheers j_p_z. Thanks for acknowledging the mistake.
I understand your point of view. And I’ve lived with a number of Chinese students who’ve chosen anglo names solely to make it easier for themselves (some of these were actually pretty funny, there were twin girls that called themselves ‘Peppermint’ and ‘Coke’).
My point is that, in daily life at least, just the simple attempt to say someone’s (difficult) name denotes a lot more respect than not trying. The only time anyone really gets riled up is if they’re given a condescending nickname (in primary school it was ‘Charlie Chan’ or ‘Bruce Lee’). But a real nickname is very inclusive.
But as Graham Bell said above, “The mishandling of unfamiliar names in the formal setting of news media, on the other hand, is completely inexcusable.”
Darlene, get your hand off it. J_P_Z was called a redneck because he said (to paraphrase): ‘If these funny named foreigners refuse to be anglicised then they can go back to where they came from’ (a position he has since retracted and stated that he was misunderstood because his comments were heavyhanded).
It’s not an outburst, GregM. You’ve kind of been acting like a sanctimonious d1ck, and Kim pulled you up on it.
I know you’re a nice guy, but you need to give this kind of pointless breatbeating a rest. I’ve been at the receiving end of it before (and I note that you were very good about it and apologised afterwards).
I note that neither of the two babies found abandoned earlier this year (one in VIC and one in NSW, I think) were dubbed “Cardboard Box”.
I think it is an unfortunate name but it`s not xenophobic like I said even the Asian newsreader called her “the toddler”.
“Darlene, get your hand off it. J_P_Z was called a redneck because he said (to paraphrase): ‘If these funny named foreigners refuse to be anglicised then they can go back to where they came from’ (a position he has since retracted and stated that he was misunderstood because his comments were heavyhanded).”
But I like having my hand on it.
It doesn’t make any difference how it started (I am sure you wouldn’t excuse the use of a term directed at other groups because of the original context). This thread has suffered from a tone that some people are more empathetic/smarter/less racist because of their language skills. People who are described as “rednecks” are regarded as none of those things. Consistency is the thing, unless you think all poor folks are stupid, insensitive and bigots.
No. That’s not been argued at all. Who has been arguing that language skills make people racist or not, and where?
The argument is that attempting to use someone’s name (even when it is difficult) is more respectful than not trying.
My original post states that the MSM is using pumpkin because they believe (whether it is true or not) that people will be more emotionally involved with ‘pumpkin’ than ‘Qian Xun Xue’.
Hell, I have my heart-strings pulled by ‘pumpkin’ more-so than ‘Qian Xun Xue’, precisly because I identify more strongly with the cute term of affection over the girls ACTUAL name.
Where in that is anyone being accused of racism because of their language skills? It’s not whether you can say Qian Xun Xue very well or not, it’s whether you even bother to try.
I’m sorry, but it annoys the hell out of me when arguments that have been laid down very clearly and concisely are reduced to such a racist/not-racist simplistic manner.
I think the tone and the level of animosity on this thread has been unfortunate. I don’t think anything further substantive is likely to be said. So I’m closing it. I’d remind everyone that you need to comply with the comments policy if you wish to comment freely at LP:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/about-larvatus-prodeo/comments-policy/