"Le - a"

[snopes]

http://www.snopes.com/racial/language/le-a.asp

[Seaboe Muffinchucker]

Originally Posted by snopes

When the mother was asked about the pronunciation of the name, she said "the dash don't be silent."

My emphasis. Ah, the subtle bigotry. Because, of course, only someone with poor grammar would name a child that.

Seaboe

[Dr. Dave]

Originally Posted by Seaboe Muffinchucker

My emphasis. Ah, the subtle bigotry. Because, of course, only someone with poor grammar would name a child that.

Seaboe

This is pure speculation as I do not know the geography, but I suspect that mentioning the parish is a signal to those in the know of the family's race as well.

ETA: I looked it up and I was completely wrong about that.

[BringTheNoise]

Originally Posted by Seaboe Muffinchucker

My emphasis. Ah, the subtle bigotry. Because, of course, only someone with poor grammar would name a child that.

Seaboe

I think the author of this particular piece was tring to imply that the mother was black as well. Using "be" in that way comes up fairly frequently in stereotypical portrayals of African American characters, at least IME.

[Chloe]

Someone brought this up a couple of days ago in the Jorja thread.

http://message.snopes.com/showpost.p...6&postcount=48

[Ryda Wong, EBfCo.]

Ah, yes. The sweet smell of subtle (or not so subtle) racism that permeates the country and keeps race wars ongoing

ETA: Totally spanked

[Ali Infree]

And why does this come up now? Hmmmm? Could it be because the Republican vice presidential candidate gave her children such distinctive names?

Probably not.

Ali "viral racism as a campaign tool" Infree

[robbiev]

Originally Posted by Chloe

Someone brought this up a couple of days ago in the Jorja thread.

http://message.snopes.com/showpost.p...6&postcount=48

Someone? I'm only a "someone?"

I was thinking about how much of a coincidence that was when I saw the thread title.

[Chloe]

Originally Posted by robbiev

Someone? I'm only a "someone?"

I was thinking about how much of a coincidence that was when I saw the thread title.

I didn't want to name names in case you were FOAFing us...

[Eddylizard]

Originally Posted by robbiev

Someone? I'm only a "someone?"

Better than being a no-one (pronounced Nodashonee.)

[robbiev]

Originally Posted by Chloe

I didn't want to name names in case you were FOAFing us...

I'd never do that!

Actually, I can't speak for the validity of what the guy told me about the pronunciation (although he is fairly trustworthy), but he did show me a copy of a written assignment with the first name as referenced.

[snopes]

Racial aspect aside, is this really any more noteworthy than a name such as "Jennifer 8. Lee"?

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/refere...lee/index.html

[matches]

My immediate thought is that a parent who has a sense of humor enough to toss in non alphabetical icons likely isn't going to be so lacking in thier lingquistic skills so as to utter "The dash don't be silent" except perhaps ironically.

One might imagine that with the prevelence of texting that this might not always be the case (a child named N8 for example doesn't required a great deal of intelect to come up with). However given that a dash isn't often used in this way (as a pronouncable icon) I have to go back to my notion that a parent intrigued enough with language to perform this trick isn't going to be a poor speaker.

I recall in highschool thinking that an exceptionally cool name would be elipsis spelled ... so that when people would read it, they might think that the name had simply been omited.

As a general rule parents giving their children interestingly odd names that might require some thought to decipher usually applied that same thought in the originating of the name.

[RivkahChaya]

I still say that's a hyphen, not a dash.

[Dara bhur gCara]

Originally Posted by snopes

Racial aspect aside, is this really any more noteworthy than a name such as "Jennifer 8. Lee"?

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/refere...lee/index.html

Didn't she just give herself the "8," though, when she first came to prominence? I think her name's just "Jennifer Lee," and she just added it herself because of the prevalence of "Jennifer Lee"s , the lucky aspect of 8 in Chinese culture, and yon movie Jennifer Eight.

[snopes]

Originally Posted by Dara bhur gCara

Didn't she just give herself the "8," though, when she first came to prominence? I think her name's just "Jennifer Lee," and she just added it herself because of the prevalence of "Jennifer Lee"s , the lucky aspect of 8 in Chinese culture, and yon movie Jennifer Eight.

But so what? My point was why are we supposed to find it somehow stupid or outrageous that one adult would choose a name of "Le-A," but it passes without comment when a different adult chooses a name of "8"? The only difference is that one was a name an adult assigned to her child and the other was a name an adult assigned to herself.

- snopes

[Jay Temple]

Originally Posted by RivkahChaya

I still say that's a hyphen, not a dash.

I just thought of that, too, although I'm as guilty as anyone else as saying "dash" when I see a hyphen in an Internet address.

[Nick Theodorakis]

Originally Posted by Jay Temple

I just thought of that, too, although I'm as guilty as anyone else as saying "dash" when I see a hyphen in an Internet address.

At least you're not calling a "/" a "back-slash," as I heard in at least one radio commercial.

Nick

[Cervus]

There's always the possibility that a person actually named Ledasha (or a variation of that) came up with an alternative spelling of her own name because it looked cool. That could be easily morphed into the story in the OP.

[Eve MG]

Originally Posted by Nick Theodorakis

At least you're not calling a "/" a "back-slash," as I heard in at least one radio commercial.

THANK YOU! I thought I was going crazy - I have heard it too - on TV where they show the web address and it is clearly a forward slash, not a backslash. When did people get this idea? Does it sound more computer-y? Like, "Hey, I remember back in the days of DOS when it was c-colon-backslash"?