A New Explanation For "Macaca?"

"the pronunciation is the same as the French version "macaque", which I admit seems to be the more common spelling in useage and the one most people are more familiar with. "

No the pronounciation is not the same. I thought that was obvious.
The difference between a word with two syllables and one with three should be striking.

When it upsets someone to point something out I don't like to go on and on about it after the point is clearly made.

No the pronounciation is not the same. I thought that was obvious. The difference between a word with two syllables and one with three should be striking. When it upsets someone to point something out I don't like to go on and on about it after the point is clearly made.

I'm going to concede this point to you. Let me show you why I though that was the case.

The phonetic pronunciation of "macaca", as defined in the dictionary is as follows: m&-'käk-&.

I mistook those symbols to indicate that the pronunciation of "macaca", as shown in the dictionary, was "ma-cock", which is also the way we say macaque.

I was wrong about that, the phonetic pronunciation of "macaque" is (m-kk, -käk).

However, that doesn't change my point, it reinforces it. The word in the dictionary which is spelled "macaca" is pronounced like "ma-ka-ka", and that's apparently exactly what Allen called the guy.

Now, I don't necessarily think he was calling the guy a monkey, or at least not intentionally.

When I read the article on FR, I thought I'd heard the term "macaca" before, saw it was the subject of the story, so I Googled it just to do a reality check. And lo and behold, it was a real word, and it sure didn't mean "sh*thead", like those idiot staffers claimed.

So posted it sort of as a "hey. look at this" kind of thing.

I'm not sure why Allen called the guy what he did. Maybe it was just as he said, just some made-up word that popped into his head that he thought would get a laugh from the predominantly Republican crowd at the expense of the freaky-looking pain in the butt Democrat with the mohawk haircut.

Only the guy turned out to be a member of some minority group, so it got blasted out into the headlines.

Allen slipped up, and he's a pro, he should know better. Imagine how it would have played if he'd gestured at a middle-aged black woman in the crowd and referred to her as "Aunt Jemima over there".

Just further proof that politicians on the stump should not try to ad-lib when they are on the campaign trail.

I wish George Allen well, and I wish you well too, Mr. Smith.

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