Audience Corrects Interviewer On Mispronouncing Issa Rae's Name

[hisjulliet]

Audience corrects interviewer who mispronounced Issa Rae’s name during their discussion at CultureCon. pic.twitter.com/COL7ioyevI
- Pop Crave (@PopCrave) October 8, 2023
When an interviewer pronounces Issa's name wrong, some people in the audience were quick to point out to the interviewer on how to pronounce her name correctly.  The interviewer then

Comments

[therearewords]

It's called research, look it up.

[836am]

Names are important, and it's so aggravating when someone doesn't make the effort to learn your name and/or acts as if you're making a big deal out of nothing when you correct them.

[crash31]

There’s a nurse I’ve worked with now for MONTHS who has been calling me by the wrong name (not even close) and I refuse to answer her when she does it, another nurse noticed her calling me the wrong name and called her out for it. It’s so disrespectful. Mind you, there are zero similarities between me and the person she is calling me (literally one is black, the other is white on top of a multitude of other reasons why she should know us)

[dbwayfarer]

Yep, people always scrunch up their face with elaborate distaste/confusion like I'm asking them to read the Voynich Manuscript or something- I could always tell when a teacher got to my name on the roster just from their face. And they'll be like, exaggeratedly mispronouncing what is honestly not a hard name to read even for someone who only knows English - just dramatically making it much more complicated by inserting random letters/sounds that would not possibly be there, like letters/vowels that simply do not exist in my name & no combination of others that would possibly be pronounced like the random sounds they're making to the point it feels like they're just being passive aggressive, or even just blatantly rude shit like just replacing the last half of my name with "blah" or "something" and then acting like it's super cute and clever

[archersangel]

....just dramatically making it much more complicated by inserting random letters/sounds that would not possibly be there, like letters/vowels that simply do not exist in my name & no combination of others that would possibly be pronounced like the random sounds they're making ....

People do that with my last name, which isn't THAT hard if you look at it and pronounce it carefully. I don't bother correcting people, unless they ask if it's correct.
However, I give them a sunny-sounding "That's right." (like encouraging a child) when they pronounce it correctly, but with a question mark at the end because they're not sure.

[therearewords]

I introduce myself with the English pronunciation only for Dutch people to manhandle it to their version because people don't listen.

[irajaxon]

i think the way my name is pronounced in english sounds so ugly but i go with it because hearing english-speakers try to pronounce it right sounds even worse, lol. they lack the musicality in their tongues.

[therearewords]

I feel so bad for everyone with an Arabic/North African name because I'm sorry we don't have the glottal Hs and proper Rs okay??

[lpbrowncoat]

One of my former co-workers would constantly misspell my name, which was extremely frustrating because my name is on my signature line and another male co-worker has the masculine version of my name (which is the version my former co-worker would use.) I finally ended it by reminding my co-worker in email and signed off by using a passive aggressive smiley face.

[cstoffer]

This drives me crazy. My name only has one pronounciation but several ways to spell it and even with it being in my mail signature AND part of my work initials several people still get it wrong 😑

[dejatrue]

[dbwayfarer]

lol there was some departmental email that got sent out a couple months back & included names clearly just copied off a list, and somehow mine still was the only one that had some weird spelling error - they added a full extra syllable of random letters not present in my actual name. not even anything that makes sense as a shortcut typo (like v or c jumping in there when using ctrl-v/ctrl-c a bunch). just... something random like "aom" in a name without any of those letters in it.

like, how do you even do that when you literally have the correct name available to simply copy/paste or directly look over at to make sure you didn't just keyboard smash in the middle of it?

it's even funnier because i've always had an issue with people *verbally* inserting random letters/sounds/syllables into different parts of my surname, but apparently my name is just so brain-breaking it even happens in text with the correct spelling right in front of you, now...

[vanouria]

I used to just tolerate people mispronouncing my name but once I started my new job, I turned a new leaf and correct people now shamelessly regardless of if they're a client or someone who is way higher up than me. there was a thread at my old job of people discussing this matter in a D&I chatter group, and all the white people were like, what's the big deal? not really understanding the meaning and intention behind a name. and even if it's not that deep, it is wildly disrespectful to not at least remember how to say a person's name. and if you're confused, then ask

[silverstarry]

if you're confused, then ask This is the biggest thing for me. It's okay if you don't know how to pronounce someone's name. All you have to do is ask

[figgypud]

Yes I never understand the disrespect some people have of constantly mispronouncing someone’s name. It’s fine to get it wrong and be corrected( and don’t make a big deal with it, correct yourself and move on) but then to consistently do the same thing?
I have such an easy name and there was a person in at work who always changed it. Like we’d say my name correctly/write it correctly in emails and then when she’d respond she’d change it. It was amazing the complete disregard