anise

[Charles Doyle]

Accounts of the unfortunate naming of young Shithead abound in (and from) countless locales (all of them also "absolutely true")--along with the naming of the twin girls Lemonjello [l@ 'man j@ lo] and Orangejello, and the lad Nosmo King (from a sign glimpsed in the hospital maternity ward). The jokes often have a racist component--perhaps an unintended tribute the greater freedom in African American naming practices.

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:12:39 -0400
>From: Doug_Harris <cats22 at STNY.RR.COM>
>Subject: Re: anise
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
>---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Doug_Harris <cats22 at STNY.RR.COM>
>Subject:      Re: anise
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>One of the worse names I've ever heard -- from the same school where one
>mother had named her two sons Admiral and General -- was the woman from
>"the [Caribbean] islands" who intended her son's name to be pronounced
>'shaTEED'. 'Didn't do him any favors, though, when she spelled it Shithead.
>(Absolutely true!)
>dh
>
>----------
>I am continually astonished at how un-selfconscious, unknowledgeable,
>incurious my students are about their own names or those of their classmates
>and others! Maybe, on account of budget cuts, recess had been abolished at
>their elementary schools, so they never had to endure (or got to inflict)
>name-taunts.
>
>Just today I tossed out the softball question, "If Columbus WAS born Jewish,
>then he must have adopted the name Christopher later in life; what's the
>reason for that conclusion?"  Silence.  Finally, a very tentatively offered
>response: "Because it sounds kind of like 'Christian'?"
>
>Besides taunt-resistance, doesn't the preference for pronouncing "Regina"
>with [-jin@] instead of with [-jain@] parallel the evident (American)
>preference for the Latinate pronunciations of "Maria" and "Sophia," which we
>have discussed here?
>
>--Charlie
>__
>
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