Posted on 11/02/2009 9:30:07 AM PST by NewMediaJournal
Roughly a quarter of a century ago, when the manager hired me to a much coveted job in the lowest echelons of management in a reputable corporation, I believed it was on the merits of my resume and real time presentation. It was the easiest conclusion to make, having been endowed with a healthy dose of self-esteem by my farm boy upbringing, reinforced by a series of academic scholarships through college and graduate school.
Then picking an “Americanized” name was one of the top three issues he addressed in the job orientation. He opined that most people would find pronouncing all three syllables of my first name, Constancio, as a project by itself, or in his words, “more than a mouthful.”
I was utterly flabbergasted. Only the fact that I already resigned from my previous job, where I was affectionately called “Mr. C” by my manager, constrained me from kissing the new job goodbye.
Again my farm boy instinct for adaptation kicked in and I settled for a compromise. During the first few years on the job I adopted the moniker “C.S.” This was conveniently consistent with the name on my driver’s license and the American Express card I carried at the time.
(Excerpt) Read more at newmediajournal.us ...
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Maybe all of us needs to reassess the false belief that people are people everywhere. There’s no such thing as a black Switzerland. Is there even one African country that has a standard of living approaching the 21st century? Are human rights respected in Latin America or are they only respected if you have a wad of cash to go with that fancy “rights” verbiage?
I refuse to vote for anyone with a hyphenated last name, or nationality identity.
Then, there's SALINAS (just to be multi-ethnic here). That too is Cornish and refers to the very same job, but as conducted in the middle of the line. The title is clear, Flag (SA) in the line (LINAS).
Then there are the surnames that refer to places, e.g. Carmichael. That's County, Kingdom of Point (CAR) Leader/Chief (Mic/Mac/Mc) and Wallace/Wales/Gaul (chael).
You'll find that name in Mount St. Michael in Normandy. That's frenchified Gaelic too.
We could go on and on and on. There are even HYPHENATED names that are historically American.
Now if you want names that mean jobs people do, e.g. CARPENTER, we also have ZIMMERMAN, and next door to him Schmidlap (and 50 other ways to spell that one). He lives down the street from Bukbinder, but he's far more important ~ after all, he makes paper!
A dehyphenated surname is ROCKEFELLER ~ as in ROQUE y' VELLOR which became Roque-Vellor and finally plain old 'Murican Rockefeller!
“He is an ardent adherent to the tenet that anything worth doing is worth doing well.”
“The manager who succeeded him promptly sent me to an accent correction tutor to get rid of my ‘thick’ Filipino accent. The premise being that speaking with a vernacular accent hindered my ability to communicate effectively.”
I guess he doesn’t consider speaking English to be something worth doing well.
There used to be. It was called Rhodesia back then.
Speaking English and having an accent are two different things. I spent 20 years working with Drs who had very heavy accents from the country they grew up in, yet they spoke impeccable English. The majority of the time, they spoke better English than people in this country. There was no ‘I’m gonna go’ and ‘Watcha doin’?’ There was nothing wrong with their spoken or written English and most of the time they put their white, American counterparts to shame with their command of the English language.
I have a problem with folks being required to change their names, and to anglicise them. Constancio has absolutely no problem for me to pronounce, but then I took French.
I don’t think anyone pronounces my name correctly, and my family has been here for 3 generations!
Yes, I have a problem with that too. I think the current fad of hyphenated ethnicity is overrated, but I see nothing wrong with people keeping their names or surnames. I thought we’d gotten past that. My maternal family had all Scottish names, I’d hate to think they wouldn’t have been able to keep them.
I know so many people who were born in other countries and have accents that I just love listening to. I am fascinated with accents, having lived with plain ol’ American accents all my life, lol. My son’s friend’s mom is from the Phillipines, she speaks lovely English with a charming accent. I have a friend who moved here from Scotland in her 30s - could listen to her all day. My other son has a friend from South America, so cool to listen to her talk! I told her to never lose her accent.
I love a southern accent more than anything else. It reminds me of the happiest time of my life.
All my maternal family have the deep Maine ‘accent’. Ayuh, lobstah and all. Like you, best times of my life, summers with them.
I enjoyed reading your post. Names and their meanings has always fascinated me. I do not believe the majority are named their names by accident and sometimes names are a trail back in time. Names of places across this globe to me are like planting maps of trails where peoples move from one place to another.
There are some words that have been used so often that I sometimes question in my own mind if I really understand what the word literally means. Bigotry is moving higher and higher on that list of words.
There were some variant spellings with extra "n"s and "l"s.
Interesting. Wonder if there were any Morgans or Nicholsons among them?
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