Sotomayor's Seditious Syllables

Of all the comically desperate attacks on Supreme Court justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor last week--she belongs to the "Latino KKK" (Tom Tancredo), she's a "Hispanic lady chick" and a "Marxist" (Glenn Beck), she's "racist" (Beck, Newt, Tucker, Coulter, Rush, to mention a few)--the only one with real conservative cojones is the charge that real Americans are being forced to "unnaturally" emphasize the last syllable of her name instead of the first. Get us by the short tilde and our hearts and minds will follow.

"Are we supposed to use the Spanish pronunciation, so-toe-my-OR, or the natural English pronunciation, SO-tuh-my-er...," asked the now Worst Person-ed Mark Krikorian, a National Review blogger and the executive director of the anti-immigration Center for Immigration Studies. "Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English," he went on, "and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn't be giving in to."

Even before Krikorian so boldly spelled out the offense, you could feel the annoyance among conservatives over the extra work the judge's name requires. Joe Scarborough (or, for those troubled by the almost French lilt of that last syllable, Scarboruff) announced he was going to have problems pronouncing her name. But really, Joe, it's not like anyone's asking you to trill your R's or something. (He's gone on to say that he's not siding with the Limbaughian name-calling, because "this doesn't elect Republicans.")

I admit, though, the first time I said "Sotomayor," I mangled it, too, as I do most unfamiliar names. But I got it the next time and now delight in lifting suddenly to that high mesa of OR.

Krikorian's line of attack has chutzpah, but it's hardly nuevo. It's always there, just under the surface, especially when some high-falutin' liberal speaks a foreign word fluently, or asks for Dijon mustard. Everytime Obama has pronounced "Pakistan" like a native (as POCK-i-stahn), the suspicions bubble over: It's an "exotic pronunciation," another National Review writer griped during the campaign, while a commenter elsewhere wrote, "he pronounces it just as his teachings in the Muslim religion has taught him to pronounce it."

The hunt for seditious syllables is part of a larger, right-wing obsession with race, gender, and purity--and it's of a piece with the cranked-up fear of Gitmo detainees touching "U.S. soil."

Of course, anybody, including lefties, can obsess about purity, hygienic or political. But, as Nicholas Kristof wrote in the Times on Thursday, studies suggest that "conservatives are more likely than liberals to sense contamination or perceive disgust."

That would explain some of the efforts by the Republican "base" to remove moderates like Colin Powell like so much used Kleenex; those easily icked-off also seem to go for impossibly tidy either/or-isms, a la Dick Cheney's edict that in the fight against terrorism, there's "no middle ground."

"There are basically two options," Krikorian seems to concur, "--the newcomer adapts to us, or we adapt to him. And multiculturalism means there's a lot more of the latter going on than there should be."

Krikorian, whose name is Armenian, has taken plenty of hits this week about knocking a Spanish surname when his own hardly rolls off the tongue. (Daily Kos blogger Allan Brauer refers to him as "Mr. Kirk," because "typing his full name exhausts me, so I'll just continue to refer to him by his superior, Americanized name...")

You can already see the Col-BER Re-POR skit taking shape (the show was in reruns last week), in which Colbert rationalizes the umbrage he takes at Sotomayor's unnatural last syllable while taking bombastic pride in his own.

And true to Colbert's satire, the right's notion of who should conform to what is highly selective and all about ego. Has the conservative punditry complained, for example, about John Boehner's insistence that his surname be pronouced BAY-ner? Shouldn't the House Minority leader of the United States Congress conform to the natural English pronunciation of "oe" as a long "o"?

But wingers tend not to correct other wingers' names--even when they're, sacre bleu!, French. Congressman Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio) is not Steven La TUR-et; Tom DeLay was never Tom DEL-ay; likewise, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), has been allowed to keep that uppercase "M," even though it forces an Old World, last syllable dominance.

In fact, by angling to Americanize foreign-sounding names (or at least those of SCOTUS nominees favored by the Democrat Party), the right is acting positively French! The Academie Francaise goes on annual bouts of banning English words, like happy hour and podcasting, and replacing them with francophonics: la bonne heure and telechargement pour baladeur.

Maybe Republicans should make an annual ritual of knocking on doors and telling people what the proper pronunciation of their names should be. Because, as Mark Krikorian says, "our predecessors were too insistent on conformity, now we're not insistent enough."

Comments (17)

1. Obama administration's attempts to reward the United Auto Workers, one of the president's strongest supporters in the last election, while trampling decades of legal precedent regarding owners of corporate debt."

   Glassman, now president of World Growth, a nonprofit economic-development group, slammed the federal government's recent negotiations with GM and Chrysler, saying "the administration's actions in trying to force the deals may damage the credit markets for years to come. The treatment of the bondholders is a warning to investors that the federal government won't hesitate to push them aside in a crisis."

   Posted by BigPasture at 05/31/2009 @ 10:27pm

2. Well Leslie, you sure put the T in tripe for this one! Here is some reality;

   The Obamanation administration has been successful in its attempts to reward the United Auto Workers, one of the president's strongest supporters in the last election, while trampling decades of legal precedent regarding owners of corporate debt."

   Glassman, the president of World Growth, a nonprofit economic-development group, slammed the federal government's recent negotiations with GM and Chrysler, saying "the administration's actions in trying to force the deals may damage the credit markets for years to come. The treatment of the bondholders is a warning to investors that the federal government won't hesitate to push them aside in a crisis."

   Thanks to the Obamanation that makes desolation and the Demoncrats they prove a failing economy and 6.5 million in job loses CAN be made worse by government! What a phenominal job!

   Posted by BigPasture at 05/31/2009 @ 10:31pm

3. "There are basically two options," Krikorian seems to concur, "--the newcomer adapts to us, or we adapt to him. And multiculturalism means there's a lot more of the latter going on than there should be."

   So let's give Mr. Krikorian what he demands: Call him KRICK-o-RYan from now on!

   Actually, his demands would make more sense if English orthography actually corresponded in any consistent way with English pronunciation. But this is not the case. If you want to give somebody a perfectly useless explanation of how a word should be pronounced, simply advise: "Say it as in English." There is no one way to pronounce any group of letters as in English.

   Spanish, on the other hand, has a very straightforward orthography and system of pronunciation. There are very simple rules, and there are virtually no exceptions to them.

   Posted by JakobFabian at 05/31/2009 @ 10:44pm

4. what a dumb waste of space. who cares about this?

   Posted by antisocialist at 05/31/2009 @ 11:04pm

5. Can we agree that Krikorian's statements are dumb and move on?

   Posted by Thrawn at 05/31/2009 @ 11:05pm

6. Is Larry Summers Taking Kickbacks From the Banks He's Bailing Out?

   "Why did Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley steer millions to a company Larry Summers directed while he administered "stress tests" on them?"

   http://www.alternet.org/story/140327/?page=entire

   Posted by frosty zoom at 06/01/2009 @ 12:11am

7. It is indeed a bit odd how conventional wisdom--or political correctness--seems to dictate that only Spanish-language names warrant native or even near-native pronunciation in American English.

   Why do we tolerate the mispronunciation of the admittedly foreign looking German name Knoblauch? People usually say "nob lock," though it is almost as easy to be correct by saying "knoa blowch? ("ch" as in loch) Perhaps one will retort that the bearer of the name mispronounces it, which is all well and good if that is the case, but suppose he or she were to insist on proper pronunciation? What then?

   What to do with the simple but elegant French name DuPont? Why don't we say "dewww pon" (severe French vowel "u" and nasalized "n")? Très joli et correct aussi. Leslie Savan clearly knows little of French if he/she thinks the American pronunciation of LaTourette is close to correct. We would need to give up our habit of reducing unstressed vowels, make a full "oo" in the stressed syllable, and embrace the distinctive Gaullic "r," for example. Pas difficile.

   What to do with Peterson? Why don't we be correctly Swedish and say "Pay tair shon"? Det går bra. The same holds more or less for the Norwegian and Danish Petersen. Then there are Icelandic and Faroese….

   Or Van Gogh, a fine name made even finer when pronounced more or less correctly as "gawch" ("ch" similar to loch)? Bijzonder goed.

   Is it right to deny these names and countless others their proper pronunciation? In my discourse, whether public or private, I do my damnedest to pronounce them all correctly, Spanish ones included. I ask only the same of my fellow Americans, whether they are Latino or not. Please do your damnedest to be correct.

   Posted by feinfein at 06/01/2009 @ 12:43am

8. Posted by BigPasture at 05/31/2009 @ 10:31pm

   RIO, is that the same James Glassman who once wrote a book called...

   "Dow 36,000"?

   LOL

   Posted by Mask at 06/01/2009 @ 07:24am

9. BTW, as noted on the other thread "so-to-my-OR' or "so-to-my-er"....

   with Newt and Rush and Beck on one side...and John Cornyn, Michael Steele, and Lindsey Graham....she's causing an internecine war in the GOP.

   as Martha Stewart would say "And that's a good thing!"...heheh

   Posted by Mask at 06/01/2009 @ 07:26am

10. funny, as a resident of the palmetto state i usually refer to our non secret log cabiner senator as "Dim Jemint".

    oh...thats just my sarcasm and dyslexia...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 06/01/2009 @ 08:33am

11. I do my damnedest to pronounce them all correctly, Spanish ones included. I ask only the same of my fellow Americans, whether they are Latino or not. Please do your damnedest to be correct.

    Posted by feinfein at 06/01/2009 @ 12:43am

    good point, finny

    Posted by frosty zoom at 06/01/2009 @ 09:18am

12. 'Interviewee: I know it's spelled "luxury yacht" but it's pronounced "throat-warbler mangrove."

    Interviewer: You're a very silly person and I'm not going to speak to you any more." '

    -- Monty Python's Flying Circus

    Posted by HonestLiberal at 06/01/2009 @ 11:41am

13. Posted by HonestLiberal at 06/01/2009 @ 11:41am

    Ya really think that one works for YOUR side, HL???

    Posted by Mask at 06/01/2009 @ 12:03pm

14. <i>Posted by feinfein at 06/01/2009 @ 12:43am </i>

    This is a little silly; the discontinuity you're talking about either doesn't exist or really just references Anglicized pronounciation of everything not-English (a phenomenon that, from what I can tell, exists in virtually every language). Why? Because everyone is generally accustomed to their own language's way of pronouncing things.

    How do I know? A prize for anyone who can tell me how everyone pronounces the Texas city known as San Jacinto. I'll give you a hint...it's not "SAHN Ha-SEEN-To"

    Posted by Thrawn at 06/01/2009 @ 5:59pm

15. Let me take that another step. It's not just pronounciation of words; there's also assimilation of words into our own language. A few examples:

    Buckaroo

    Penal

    Accomplice

    Scribe

    I don't know of any language that doesn't do this.

    Posted by Thrawn at 06/01/2009 @ 6:03pm

16. Funny article - it reminds me of some Colorado town names. As in Buena Vista (pronounced Byuna Vista, or just Byunie for short) or Pueblo (pronounced Pee-eb-lo). I'm pretty sure these evolved as a way for non-Hispanics to assert their non-Hispanicness, but I could be wrong.

    Posted by cdlepthien at 06/01/2009 @ 6:16pm

17. Oohhh . . .my turn!

    How about that beautiful little Maryland town at the confluence of the Susquehanna river and the Chesapeak Bay named Havre de Grace. The locals turn Havre into Have-er and Grace rhymes with trace. Ouch, my ears!

    Posted by casper1 at 06/03/2009 @ 07:12am