imo it’s common sense to try. I mean if you have a name that’s hard to pronounce, I’m sure your used to hearing all kinds of different pronunciations. Since I don’t follow crap shows I don’t know, but I can imagine this isn’t a isolated incident, hence why the tweet.
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Thanks for the clarification!
I will say initially that asking someone if they have a nickname because you can’t be bothered to try and pronounce their name is just poor form. Not necessarily racist, but definitely lazy and rude. More an indicator of Brits inability and reluctance to learn a new language/refusing to try.
I have a very hard name to pronounce correctly for basically anyone who isn’t Scandinavian. Even more so if you include my middle and last name. Brits and Americans have made fun of my name/acted incredulous when they heard it my whole life haha
Growing up, my whole life people have absolutely butchered my name (almost exclusively Brits and Americans although Asians struggle as well, because my name just doesn’t exist in English or those languages). I cannot tell you how sick and tired I got of people just fucking up my name every day or every time I met someone new.
I remember at one school I went to, someone just said “Hey I’m sorry I really just can’t pronounce your name, I’m just going to call you Jay” and it just stuck. Ever since I was about 15 I’ve just been Jay to everyone, and I started introducing myself as Jay because honestly hearing people unable to say my name was so fucking annoying. I use it personally and professionally, unless I’m speaking to Scandis/Europeans (Benelux, Germans, Spaniards, and Portuguese have variations of the name).
Granted, Yewande is a really straight forward name to pronounce correctly more so than mine, so I think it’s bullshit that Lucie just straight up asked her for a nickname. I’ve never had people ask me straight up for a nickname, they politely tried a few times before I cut them off or I just give them my nickname that I was christened with all those years ago.
I’m hesitant to start branding people who mispronounce names racists. Up until recently I was apparently pronouncing Kamala Harris’ the racist way because I had never ever heard that name before, had no frame of reference for how to pronounce it and pronounced it the way that seemed to make sense within my linguistic and phonetic framework. In the same way that I don’t consider people who can’t pronounce my name and prefer to use my nickname racist - I get just as awkward and embarrassed as the person struggling to say my name.
However Lucie being like “Your name’s crazy let me call you Y” is fucking stupid, but then Lucie is from Cornwall and there’s a pretty good chance Yewande is the first black person she’s ever met if she’s lived in Cornwall her whole life.
I guess my situation is different because I’m not black and Yewande probably grew up in a place where 90% of people had the brainpower to pronounce her relatively simple name correctly so it was even more egregious, whereas I’ve grown up with people never being able to pronounce my name so I’m just used to it and have just accepted it.
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To say someone is using micro aggression with malicious/sinister intent, simply because they asked if they can shorten your name, is making a lot of assumptions about a persons character.
It sounds like she is either a control freak or over sensitive.
She should remember that being a Love Island contestant probably means that they struggle to string more than a couple of syllables together anyway so asking to shorten someone’s name is about par for the course.
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Similar here. My last name makes perfect sense in English, but not my first name. The opposite in Swedish. But I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t atleast try to pronounce it correctly.
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Depends nicknames can be good bantz. I used to work at a company and everyone called me Big A because I was into weight lifting. I grew up with loads of Pakistani lads and most shortened their names and some would have converted English names.
Like at the moment the bird I’m chatting to has descriptions for her friends, so yesterday she went to see ‘No frills mum’. All of that can be seen as insulting, but it’s all a bit of a laugh too.
I don’t watch shitty reality TV so I don’t know the context
Me and @Cristo apparently share the same first name. I want to offer him and myself my deepest condolences, it’s hard living with that name in the UK 
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Is your nickname Cristo
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The suspense of this impossible to pronounce name is killing me
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I read ‘micro aggression’ and lost all interest in anything else she had to say.
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Well I was gonna post what my name is but not that I’ve found out Ocke shares my name I don’t want to “out” a personal detail of his on the forum 
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Yewande shouldn’t really be a hard name to pronounce.
Yeah that’s why I just said “same name” haha. Let these bastards in here live with the suspense of not knowing I say 
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Jocke?
Jisto?
Jarol
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That’s a girl’s name silly.
Exactly
But believe it or not men are named Jarol in Denmark.
Love Island person: Hello Yewo…Yewam…Yermaw…Yewom…Yewm…Oh I give up, can I shorten it?
Normal person: Hello Yewande.
You posted a picture of your birthday cake with (I assume) your name on it not so long ago.
Mystery solved.
Sure. I’m responding to the absolutist nature of the tweet.
And pretty sure he posted a screen shot of something recently which had his full name on it too…
Not so careful is ol’ @Cristo 
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