Friday Spelling Test
Without looking, how many BMG’rs can spell both men’s names?
It took us a while initially to learn to spell “Barack Obama,” right? But we got the hang of it.
In the Globe today:
Karzai bad!
Khazei good!
Please share widely!
Seeing both names together, however, I CAN tell who is the Afghan President and who is the Senate candidate.
My underlying point in posting this is that we may resist embracing candidates – or people – who look different or who have different-sounding names. Obama had the classic line about himself in his famous 2004 Democratic Convention speech: “a skinny kid with a funny name.” Alan Khazei has a “funny” last name too: it’s not clear how to pronounce it by looking at it and the spelling is not easy to remember initially. Barack Obama’s name was even more difficult, with both his first and last names being unusual in this country. I remember, very early on, trying to figure out if his name was “Obama Barack” or “Barack Obama.”
<
p>But we learned Obama’s name and much more. This is all part of America gradually acknowledging, understanding and embracing our increasing ethnic diversity. I am proud that we were able to elect “a skinny kid with a funny name” and trust that we will elect more and more good people with names that initially are different-sounding but who we get used to and comfortable with.
…when our Governor was “Patrick Deval” to those not paying attention in 2005. Then he teamed up with the Mayor of Worcester and we ended up running a dyed-in-the-wool Irishman named “Patrick Murray” for our Chief Executive Magistrate!
…that “propah” Bostonians are more likely than others to pronounce them similarly since we often drop R sounds like in Ka(r)zai.
I found myself doing a literal double-take with this morning’s Globe editorial.
<
p>I’m sure the Globe didn’t intend anything towards Candidate Khazei, and I apologize in advance for my own momentary confusion.