At the the height of the salsa craze in the mid 2000's there was no shortage of recently divorced, desperate 40 something women to capitalize on the scene and fool themselves into thinking all those Latino males were interested in marriage and not a
green card
or
one night stand
The scene has fizzled now and I don't know where the illegal immigrants went or where the desperate 40 something American women went, but I do know one thing:
It irked me to no end when said women would pronounce, on purpose, and in great compliance, Spanish words in their native accent and not how we normally pronounce it in America.
Tiburon is the Spanish name for "shark" and was also a night club in Minneapolis.
Real,
Normal,
Manly,
American men
would pronounce it "Tib ur ron."
But aging desperate 40 something women to placate diversity and give their meaningless lives meaning would pronounce it
"Teee beer rrrrrruuuuuuuuunnn."
Note the emphasis on rolling r's.
Let me explain this so the rest of society can advance.
Chile is pronounced, "chilly" by normal non-communist, non-pedophile Americans.
People who pronounce it "ChEEE-LAY" are evil, leftist, aging 40 something women who would sell the entire country under the bus so long as they get male attention from illegal immigrants who couldn't care less about the future, society, democracy or liberty and have no problems setting society back millinea to collect a government paycheck.
You may laugh and of course I'm being a bit sarcastic, but not by much. People who purposely change their pronunciation of a word from a foreign land from that of their homeland to that of the foreign are in plain sight decreeing to the world that they have no allegiance to their homeland and have more allegiance to foreign lands.
It's why I don't trust them and neither should you.
Now, contrast that with by good buddy Silvio Canto who IS from a foreign country, then it makes sense that he would pronounce it normally as it is his home country.
I pronounce it "Que Ba"
He pronounces it "Koo Ba"
But the dude lived there and had to suffer under Castro's commie bullshit.
The 44 year old HR manager with her waist scarf trying to delude herself about her SMV in the salsa scene who had all the advantages of the United States and never suffered real oppression has no right to start faking accents and pronunciations, DID NOT suffer genuine oppression that most of our Latino brothers and sisters did.
But by all means, ladies. Delude yourself into thinking pronouncing Spanish words in the homeland dialect will increase your chances of scoring Antonio or Jose as a husband. In the end you are just a middle aged woman being used for residency, a one night stand, and AT BEST long term public assistance purposes.
I was watching a PBS program on Ukeleles a while ago.
ReplyDeleteI only watched because I had always wondered where the Hawaiian fad came from and thought this might explain it a little bit.
But, this narrator chick kept pronouncing it oo-ke-leh-leh.
Drove me nuts.
I don't think Tiny Tim ever played a oo-ke-leh-leh.
He did play Tiptoe Through The Tulips on a you-ke-lay-lee.
See, e.g., our Great and Illustrious Leader and his pronunciation of Pakistan and Iran.
ReplyDeleteThis is infuriating; it's also made its way to maps. Calcutta and Bombay have become Kolkata and Mumbai. Peking has become Beijing (though that's more due to different romanizations, I suppose).
Yet we still call Japan "Japan," and not "Nihon."
It's perfectly acceptable to anglicize foreign place names. We've been doing it for centuries, and stopping now is the height of multicultural bullshit.
Slightly humorous factoid. In Vietnamese, the pronunciation "Koo Ba" means "daddy's dick". Learned that from a bar.
ReplyDeleteLol didn't SNL spoof this years ago with jimmy smits?
ReplyDeleteI worked in a graphics company where we had a Mexican co-worker named Luis. I tried being all multi-culti and pronounced his name the way he did. Then I got called in to (our equivalent of the HR chick's) office and got accused of being racist.
ReplyDeleteSo what it comes down to basically is that you can't win. The Ditzes are bound and determined to be offended by SOMETHING, so you might as well just pronounce things the way you want to.
Y tu mama tambien. :-)
ReplyDeleteBTW, you say "SAAH-naah", we say "SOW-nah".
Regards,
your friends in Finland who are tired of you lot mispronouncing the only word we gave you :-)
Question for CappyCap (and others):
ReplyDeleteWhat about Sri Lanka, Myanmar, etc.?
I'm going to take a contrary view. There's a town in west-central California called Paso Robles. I always assumed it would be pronounced in the Spanish fashion, "Pah-so Robe-lays". When I learned that the locals pronounce it "Pass-o Row-bulls", I was appalled. It just sounds ugly to me.
ReplyDeleteim a white girl married to a latino. i didnt want to look like the women you were talking about so i pronounced spanish words in my american east coast accent. and his family still rolled on the floor laughing and corrected me. " no its pronounced this way " . they still make fun of me for it. i agree with Amethyst . you cant win.
ReplyDeleteI lived with commie BS in East Germany, and I call it...
ReplyDeleteEast Germany
National borders are arbitrary and serve no purpose other than to oppress trade and freedom of movement. There is no particular reason to think illegal immigrants are uncommitted to liberty; if I were in a country that didn't serve my needs I'd immigrate illegally too. The welfare state is a problem but the solution is to end the welfare state.
ReplyDeleteGiven this, I see no particular reason to prefer one pronunciation over another.
Then there's the city of Buena Vista in Iowa. The locals prounounce it BYOO-nah VISS-tah.
ReplyDeleteMakes me laugh every time.
Heh, ask how you pronounce Regina.
ReplyDeleteGot laughed at the entire time I was up there for REFUSING to pronounce it the Canadians do!
Peabody, its actually a county in Iowa. Named after the state in Mexico where the U.S. defeated Mexico in the Mexican American war. I figure they can pronounce it any way they like.
ReplyDeleteIronically enough, now the county seat is home to two packing plants and the population is roughly 45% Hispanic.
"Teee beer rrrrrruuuuuuuuunnn."
ReplyDeleteWriting from Mexico, that is now how it is pronounced in Mexico. Tee Buu rrrron. So, she is more messed up than you think.
There is a local doctor here. She is divorced, close to 50, three kids, and obese. Her sex life has to be zero. Forty something land whales in rural Mexico need corded vibrators; batteries can't deal with it.
She found some guy in South America on-line, and went down to visit him. My guess based on the smile on her face when she came back was he imitated a corded vibrator. She thought he really loved her and tried to bring him back to Mexico.
It was an obvious gold-digger who wanted the upscale life in Mexico. We knew the minute he got papers here, she was history. (In case you didn't know it, Mexico is considered rich in much of SA.) Several years have passed and he hasn't showed up. And, if you come by in 10,000 years he still won't be here.
Anonymous age 71
Not that I really care alot, but it seems ignorant to purposefully mispronounce words and take such a hard stance against proper speaking.
ReplyDelete" Oh... I know Im sayin' it wrong, but screw them...". Really now? Do you exercise such ignorance in other aspects of life also?
.... must be nice.
You don't roll the R in tiburon. These people are even dumber than you think.
ReplyDelete