I don’t like the increasing tendency of parents to saddle their children with difficult and unpronounceable names, and Glenn Reynolds linked a story that’s a particularly awful example.
As can be seen in the video, this Longshoreman’s union activist is plenty pissed, and he clearly has a major chip on his shoulder over the unfortunate name he was given.
The local media was outside of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU Local 21) offices in Longview, Washington gathering interviews and b-roll.
Here’s what happened when one of the union members, who said his name was “F*ck You C*cksucker,” came outside to discuss their possible trespassing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFHBGGvuQhA&feature=player_embedded
The thing is, what’s worse than giving children awful names is the insertion of asterisks into them, because this makes them so much harder to pronounce. (Don’t laugh; the practice has already been banned in New Zealand.) Can we really be sure the man’s parents spelled their baby’s name with two asterisks? Somehow, I very much doubt it. If they had, the man would have pronounced his name differently, with a glottal stop (or “voiceless glottal plosive” or whatever you call it).
So, much as I hate to say it, I fear the well-meaning blogger who wrote the above post may have done more harm than good, by leaving poor Mr. Koksukker to face his five minutes of fame with a name now so hopelessly asterisked as to be unpronounceable. Yes, I spelled his name phonetically, because from the video we really can’t be sure how the Koksukker family spells it, but I seriously doubt they use asterisks. So with all respect, I refuse to do the glottal stop.
Michelle Malkin has some background on the underlying dispute, and says all that Labor Day incitement may be paying off.
I’ll say.
Comments
6 responses to “The name is bad enough without the glottal stop”
I never heard one of these Union Guys admitting to be a C*ck S*cker before. Wait till his buddies find out. I guess he saves the price of a Fleet or two every day. That can add up. But he will have to up his mouthwash use. If he wants to be fresh for kissing his union brothers. Of course it depends on where they like to be kissed.
I wonder what his daughter’s name is?
The Army Corps of Engineers has just completed a years long deepening of the shipping canal from the mouth of the Columbia River at Astoria up to Portland, passing Longview, WA along the way. This was done to accommodate deep hull ships and makes Longview attractive as a possible major export terminal.
The EGT grain export dock is one of two facilities just upgraded at Longview. The other is the former Reynolds Aluminum plant now owned by Millenium Bulk Terminals, an Australian company. It is facing labor as well as environmental opposition, big time. If allowed to open, it will bring mile long trains of coal from the Powder River Basin for export to China. Right now there is NO decent export facility in the Pacific Northwest for coal. It is being exported through Canada at Vancouver. Here is an article about that:
http://tdn.com/news/local/article_35ad9c0c-3634-11e0-8eea-001cc4c03286.html
That ILWU labor guy was given the right name by his parents.
I’m glad you posted this. I’ve updated my earlier posting with a link.
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Union Guys?
[…] You can watch the video that made the guy we are about to discuss famous at My name is F**k You Co**sucker. […]