Thursday, February 08, 2007

Name Change

You'll ofter run into a foreigner ( has that term been deemed inappropriate yet ?)...anyway " a person of alternate origin" and you'll introduce yourself and the person will say, " Hi, I'm Ernie Fanutzamuha". Now you KNOW the dude's names isn't Ernie...and if you look into it you'll find out that his name is really Ensahunamrkinya or some unpronouncable shit like that.

I say...whatever...I'll happily give the dudes name a shot if he wants to tell it to me...but I can also appreciate the dude not wanting every conversation to start awkwardly with some douchebag cracker butchering his name over and over..." Uh, nice to meet you Ensa...Ensa...Ensahun...nice to meet you sir."

I went through a similar thing with a Leboneese friend I invited over to my poker game. His name is Maher and the conversation went like this:

" Hi, I'm Maher"

" Nice to meet you Maher"

" No...it's Maher"

" Yeah...Maher. No ?"

"No ! Ma-Her"

" Ma-Her"

"no...Maaaaaaa-Heeeer"

urrrrgh " Maaaaaa-Heeeer ?"

" No, nevermind"

" Ok fair enough....I see you've brought your friend, what's his name"

" Oh, this is Maher"

" Oh...same name as you !"

" What ? What are you talking about....I am Maher...he is Maher...how is this the same?"

So fuck him. He's now " Buddy" and his partner is " Captain"..or occassionally "Pal".

Anyway, I mention this because I got a storm water report today from a guy. He's a foreign national. And instead of him involking the opportunity to Americanize his name he stood true to his family heritage. His report way proudly signed:

"Yong Fook Ho"

2 comments:

scott haverstick said...

leboneese??? he from lebon?

Flick said...

I'm not sure exactly where he's FROM, but I could guess where he might BE NOW...because the last time I saw him he was in your Mom's underpants.

Did I spell all of that correctly ?