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77 Comments
- mjk340, on 04/09/2009, -2/+51how do these ***** get elected
- AgeofMastery, on 04/09/2009, -1/+31A Republican from Texas, why am I not surprised?
FTA
“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said. - novenator, on 04/09/2009, -1/+30hard to pronounce things when you have your own foot stuck in your ass
- obamaisbiracial, on 04/10/2009, -0/+23does she realize that most of the chinese names are like "chang"? it's not like they write their names in character form. chinese names are no more difficult than names like "stephenopolous". and they're generally fewer syllables too.
and her spokesman said that "Democrats “want this to just be about race." shocking really. - relaxeder, on 04/17/2009, -1/+21You need a real American name, like Wurzelbacher. Shin is too complicated.
- kismetropolis, on 04/09/2009, -0/+19Yep. The name "Ko" is so difficult to pronounce.
do you really need me to put </s> here? Just in case, I will: </s> - marchorowitz, on 04/09/2009, -0/+15who knows man? What century are they living in??
- Gyp2, on 04/09/2009, -3/+17Dont blame all of Texas for her. Were not all bastards.
- bluechips23, on 04/10/2009, -0/+8Because the other *****, sadly enough, voted for them.
- normlsparky, on 04/09/2009, -1/+9A limit on the number of letters would also make it easier. Nothing longer than, say, BillyBob.
- kcp12304, on 04/10/2009, -0/+7...........................................________
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...................................,<`.._|_,-&``................`\ - northwatuppa, on 04/10/2009, -0/+7Boy, if she thinks Asian names are hard to spell/pronounce, how about Czech, Polish, Latvian, Arabic, Russian, Greek, Jewish, Welsh, Indian etc., etc., etc., names.
Where would it end? - ConcernedCanuck, on 04/10/2009, -3/+9Racist
on separate but related note don't you think it would be better if we called places around the world what they want to be called?
instead of Germany we would have Deutschland Etc. - Hillsfar, on 04/10/2009, -2/+8Time to lasso this geriatric legislator and cattle-drive her to the local Panda Express, where we shall force feed her orange chicken and chow mein until she pukes and cries Charlie! And after that, we shall brand her ass with a flaming wok!
-_-
And yes, I am Chinese American. - Cowboy1015, on 04/10/2009, -0/+6She's ***** out of her mind.
What an idiot. - therearenorules, on 04/10/2009, -0/+5These are amazing people we have running the country.
- evomenthe, on 04/10/2009, -0/+4I never realized how simple the common ones are until now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chinese_surna ... - kingmanic, on 04/10/2009, -0/+4All Han Chinese first/middle/last names are a single syllable.
- kingmanic, on 04/10/2009, -0/+4Most people with difficult names get used to having it mis pronounced. Usually the standard romanized mis pronunciation is fine. My dads name is wang pronounced "woung" but he accepts peopel calling him wang.
Honestly. Chinese and Asians in general are some of the most accommodating in most regards. This sort of bigoted ***** is infuriating because most Asians are polite about it and rarely make a fuss if you screw up the pronunciation. - elnayr, on 04/10/2009, -0/+3Bitch needs to change her name to Sumting Wong.
- Impossibilities, on 04/10/2009, -0/+3Because Lee, Wong, and Kim are so much harder to pronounce than Blagojevich or Schwarzenegger. </s>
- donnytomas, on 04/10/2009, -4/+7Why doesn't Texas secede so we can declare war on it and blow it straight to hell?
http://www.texassecede.com/ - masamunecyrus, on 04/10/2009, -1/+3All of the Asians I know (specifically Chinese, Japanese, and Malaysians) already DO go by standard English names, lest they be bothered to spell their name all the time.
- spong, on 04/10/2009, -0/+2here is the video, which shows how much thinkprogress has taken her quotes completely out of context.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9hdVUzMeDw - mkardiv, on 04/10/2009, -1/+3Don't you mean a real American name like 'The Plumber'?
- gaoshan, on 04/10/2009, -0/+2You don't have to learn the language in order to pronounce someone's name! Frankly most American's can't really hear the 4 tones very clearly at all anyway so don't worry about it. And there are not 4 different meanings. As a surname it is simply that, a name. No secret meaning hidden in it.
With a name like Chang just say it like most Americans do, Chang with the a sounding like the a in "clang". It's good enough, many asian-americans actually pronounce it that way anyway and no one is going to bother correcting you as most Chinese don't expect you to get it right (fyi, the a is like "ah" as in lawn). - jtb1999, on 04/10/2009, -6/+8Only a Repbulican, or a Republican from Texas could be so insensative and stupid! Sad.
- bagpulistu, on 04/10/2009, -0/+2So why not change the English language too? It's really hard to spell it! That's why you Americans have spelling contests.
- shalb, on 04/10/2009, -0/+2The surname Chang will be pronounced "Chang" despite the fact that it sounds closer to "Zhang" in most cases. There's only 4 different tone sounds in Mandarin, but when it comes to surnames, there's usually only one pronunciation. That and most Chinese people are either Chang/Zhang, Wang, Li, Zhao or Liu/Lau. Those are the 5 most common surnames. The differentiation is between which dialect the surname is translated into English and which phonetic spelling is used. Chang is the original phonetic spelling US created for Taiwan. However, if you use Han Yu pinyin Mainland China developed, it changes to Zhang. And Mandarin isn't that hard to speak. There's only 400 or so sounds for the thousands of different words it has. Unlike English or French, the way something is spelled phonetically (including tone marks for Chinese) is exactly how things are pronounced. There's no confusing like "tongue" which breaks the rule in which 'e' after a vowel elongates the sound of the vowel. Instead, you only pronounce "tong" part of the word since "ue" is silent but spelling it as "tong" turns it into another word with another spelling. Phonetically, "tongue" should be spelled "tung".
- ArchangelZLT, on 04/10/2009, -0/+2When everyone is barcoded instead of named.
- jveezy, on 04/10/2009, -0/+2I would equate that to forcing Asian immigrants to try to come up with a phonetic English way to write their name. You can't just write your name in a foreign alphabet on a form and expect anyone in this country to be able to read it. A lot of Asian languages have sounds that are hard to show using the English alphabet so they have to make do with the closest letters/letter combos as possible.
It's perfectly reasonable to expect to do the same thing going to Japan. You're not changing your name. Just coming up with a phonetic Japanese spelling of your English name. Sure plenty of Japanese people can read English but it's certainly more proper to write it in a manner that's easiest for the native population to process.
Certainly not the same thing that Rep. Brown is advocating. Seems a bit ridiculous that she was trying to defend herself to someone named "Ko". - Ouze, on 04/10/2009, -0/+2Apparently everything non-asian is Americanized, and easy to pronounce for the lawmaker from the Llano Estacado region.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llano_Estacado - Mroutrageous, on 04/10/2009, -0/+2Maybe we should all just go by numbers.
- shalb, on 04/10/2009, -0/+2Given that Chinese last names are one (maybe two in rare cases) syllables long, how hard is it to pronounce? Koreans are mostly Park and Lee (if I remember correctly, the others are mostly one to two syllables long as their names are in a similar fashion to Chinese names). Japanese last names are perhaps the longest, but their words are based off of variations of a, i, u, e, o. Russians are also technically Asian, but don't fall into the Asian American group. Try pronouncing Baumgaertner correctly or Babineaux. Filipinos are also technically Asian, but they prefer to call themselves "Pacific Islanders". The sad thing is, Asian Americans use the closest phonetically sounding spelling using the English alphabet. If you can pronounce deoxyribonucleic acid, mostly the former, then chances are you can pronounce how Asian Americans pronounce their last names in English.
- qazws, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1My name is Elvis Presley.
- bizkit00, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1Turkey, by their naming scheme, should be Turkia, and have nothing to do with flightless fowl.
- gaoshan, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1I wonder if she is ok with Zbigniew Brzezinski? Probably wishes he would change his name to Zack Breeze or some such.
- darkane, on 04/10/2009, -1/+2She looks bizarrely similar to the lady that plays Michael's mother on Burn Notice.
- MooseOfReason, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1Head, in Betty's case.
- inactive, on 04/10/2009, -1/+2video?
- shalb, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1Like calling China Zhong Guo, the way they call their country. Nihon, instead of Japan.
- GlassAgate, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1Now, I feel like dissing English. Why has it not adopted a phonetic alphabet,
yet? It would be easier to learn if it did. Sure, there would be more characters
to learn, but there wouldn't be any of that crap with one letter making multiple
sounds. It can be confusing as hell, sometimes.
Time to put into place the English language portion of the international phonetic
language. Who's with me? - GlassAgate, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1Me thinks someone need to be polishing up her resume.
That, or learn to not be such an ass. Why must the
bitch bitch? - klhigg04, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1yeah its usually the first name (which is given after the surname) which is longer... but it still only usually two or three sylables1
- shalb, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1The country standing at the top will always be hated. It just so happens the US lost tremendous amount of power and respect over the last 8 years that people aren't afraid to bash the hell out of US.
- MooseOfReason, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1That's what I meant. "...head stuck in your ass."
- sageerrant, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1And really, katakana is pretty damn flexible.
My last name isn't at all common, and it still transliterates pretty well. Enough that I would easily recognize it if read aloud, at any rate. - REV0R, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1I don't understand Digg's system. Right below this comment box is the 'Related by Keyword' that is obviously on the same topic but submitted 7 hours earlier. What's the point of relevant, constructive commenting if half of it is on another article?
- crapuccino, on 04/10/2009, -0/+1Ass I'm afraid. It's what she talks out of y'see?
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