Re: USAGE: The name "Chiang Kai-shek"

 --- "Douglas Koller, Latin & French"
<latinfrench@...> wrote: > John writes:
>
> >Douglas Koller, Latin & French scripsit:
> >
> >>  Perhaps CKS had a
> >>  warped sense of romanization humor (along the
> lines of "Hi, my name's
> >>  Anvil Chung.").
> >
> >Who's that?  Googling drew a blank for once.  Or is
> this supposed
> >to be a half-translation of CKS?  But if so, why
> "anvil"?  Anvils are
> >made of iron, dammit.
>
> It's no one. An inside joke that, I guess, was a
> little too inside.
> And I was a little too liberal in the distinction
> between "romanize"
> and "anglicize".
>
> When Chinese women decide to take on an English
> name, it's either of
> the Playboy bunny school: "Hi, my name's Bunny,
> Brandy, Candy,
> Cherry, Lolly, Sissy, Chrissy, Ruby, etc....."; the
> Bewitched school:
> "Hi, my name's Esmerelda, Cassandra, Samantha,
> Endora, Cleopatra,
> Desdemona, etc..."; or the off-the-wall: "Hi, my
> name's Pallas,
> Ironing Board, Chrysanthemum, Anaconda, etc.....".
>
> Chinese guy anglo names are either monosyllabic
> football names: "Hi,
> my name's Dirk, Buck, Ted, Craig, Greg, Mack,
> etc.....; or
> off-the-wall: "Hi, my name's Anvil, Tether, Reach,
> Ballpeen,
> etc......" (I kid you not, I had a student named
> "Big Gun").
>
I went to school with someone whose name was (
something like ) Fung LiunQu ( he spelt it Foong Leon
Chiew, but i'm pretty sure it was PuTongHua ). he took
as his english name Leon, his sister ( LiunYi ) was
Leonie, but i think his brother was something like
Leonard . . .

reminds me of friends of my parents : julian and anne,
who had two sons who they ( sadistically ) called
lucian and dorian. not content with sharing a surname,
they had to extend this to the final syllable of
everyone's forename !

bn

=====
bnathyuw | landan | arR
stamp the sunshine out | angelfish
your tears came like anaesthesia | phèdre

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