“Woke”

[d4m10n]

Did they in fact meaningfully disarm Ukraine?

That's a good question, but you dodged mine. Are you aware of any other GOP platform changes requested by the Trump Campaign?

ETA: This is important, b/c if it's the only one that tells us something about whether the Kyiv/Kiev linguistic distinction has political salience to the previous administration.

 

[tyr_13]

I'm saying the difference is probably indistinguishable, to a lot of foreign ears, ...

Oh for the love of Oxford, one is one syllable and the other is two.

Today I learned that 'woke' is even letting countries name their own damn cities.

 

[d4m10n]

In post-Soviet Russia, Putin names you!

 

[Ron Obvious]

Oh for the love of Oxford, one is one syllable and the other is two.

Today I learned that 'woke' is even letting countries name their own damn cities.

Do you pronounce Paris "Paree"? Munich as Muenchen? Moscow as Moscwa?

If not, why not? Finland or Suomi? Are Hungarians Magyars? Is it racist to not call them that?

You might want to think this one through a little more.

 

[d4m10n]

Do you pronounce Paris "Paree"? Munich as Muenchen? Moscow as Moscwa?

Do any of these examples involve an active war zone with contested national powers? No? Okay then.

If I were to refer to a certain city as "Königsberg" (nowadays) it might tell you whether I think Russia deserves to retain possession thereof.

 

[theprestige]

Oh for the love of Oxford, one is one syllable and the other is two.

Is it? I've seen a lot of different variants being pushed by English-speakers.

And no, pronunciation of foreign languages is not even that scrutable, for a lot of people.

Today I learned that 'woke' is even letting countries name their own damn cities.

What's woke is insisting that you're politically incorrect if you don't pronounce a foreign city name exactly the way native speakers of the language pronounce it. I support Ukraine wholeheartedly in this conflict, but apparently I'm a dirty ruscist if I don't immediately take a Duolingo course in Not Accidentally Sounding Too Russian For Sensitive Ukrainian Ears. Can I say a prayer to Saints Javelin and HIMARS and call it even? Or is indulgence-buying not allowed?

 

[arthwollipot]

Oh, so we're onto endonyms and exonyms now?

Okay, here it is straight up. I say Kyiv to indicate support and solidarity with the Ukrainian defenders. In other words, for a purely political reason. Sláva Ukraíni!

 

[theprestige]

Oh, so we're onto endonyms and exonyms now?

Okay, here it is straight up. I say Kyiv to indicate support and solidarity with the Ukrainian defenders. In other words, for a purely political reason. Sláva Ukraíni!

Well, this kind of display certainly fits my definition of "woke". So there's that.

 

[arthwollipot]

Well, this kind of display certainly fits my definition of "woke". So there's that.

If that's your definition then I will wear the label proudly.

 

[d4m10n]

If that's your definition then I will wear the label proudly.

Yeah I'm w/ arthwollipot on this one.

Signaling virtue may be pointless some of the time (perhaps most of the time) but signaling support for embattled allies in an active war zone has consequences in a democracy, especially when one party has demonstrated a penchant for irrational levels of Russophilia.

ETA: I don't think this is about wokeness, really. Russian oppression of Ukraine never made the traditional progressive stack.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Yeah, theprestige seems to be doing performance art or over the top mockery/provocation. I would bet most Americans/Westerners never pronounced Kiev exactly like a Russian and there is no similar expectation to pronounce Kyiv exactly like a Ukrainian.

 

[arthwollipot]

Yeah, theprestige seems to be doing performance art or over the top mockery/provocation.

In other words, exactly what he accuses us of doing.

 

[theprestige]

If that's your definition then I will wear the label proudly.

Well, yes. Making it a point of pride to signal a virtue that nobody doubted in the first place is part and parcel of being woke. You're performing support for Ukraine. So that we can see you performing it and you can feel good about us seeing you perform it.

And it's cargo-cult support, going through the motions but not actually changing anything. Pronouncing it "keev" or "kyiv" or whatever you imagine the shibboleth is supposed to be, doesn't change anything on the ground in Ukraine. It doesn't change anything in your parliament. It doesn't change anything in the hearts and minds of anyone around you. If you said it out loud, probably most people who heard you would neither notice nor understand.

It's good to pronounce it the right way. It's woke to make a display of it.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Yeah, theprestige seems to be doing performance art or over the top mockery/provocation. I would bet most Americans/Westerners never pronounced Kiev exactly like a Russian and there is no similar expectation to pronounce Kyiv exactly like a Ukrainian.

Before last fall or so I'd only ever encounted Kiev in the form of chicken. Which I haven't had in a while, come to think of it. Mom used to make it a lot in the 80s, I guess she got tired of it.

 

[xjx388]

All aboard the euphemism treadmill^WP!

By the end of this enlightening ride, you'll understand why it's okay woke to call my father a "Latinx person of color" but not an "Hispanic mulatto."

Speaking as a person with Mexican ancestry…the woke person who came up with Latinx needs to go back to sleep.

 

[arthwollipot]

Speaking as a person with Mexican ancestry…the woke person who came up with Latinx needs to go back to sleep.

Speaking as someone with none, I've always found it to be a rather awkward way of degenderising a strongly gendered language.

 

[tyr_13]

Do you pronounce Paris "Paree"?

If they asked me to I would! I sure as **** would do the trivial amount of work it would take to not pronounce it the way Germans do during WWII! I also don't call Taiwan 'Chinese Taipei'. If Japan had a movement to get people to say Nippon instead, yeah, I'd do that too.

You might want to think this one through a little more.

Not seeing the angle that this comes out in favor of 'I'm gonna say it how I want to even if the people there don't want me to'. What thought comes out for this? You're not making a case as to why I need to reject countries naming their own cities, and saying it the way they politely asked it be said.

 

[Ron Obvious]

Do any of these examples involve an active war zone with contested national powers? No? Okay then.

If I were to refer to a certain city as "Königsberg" (nowadays) it might tell you whether I think Russia deserves to retain possession thereof.

That doesn't seem to be relevant: Bombay became Mumbai, Peking became Beijing without active wars or disputes about possession.

 

[arthwollipot]

That doesn't seem to be relevant: Bombay became Mumbai, Peking became Beijing without active wars or disputes about possession.

Yes. The old British colonial name was replaced with the correct indigenous name. I see no difference between this and changing Kiev to Kyiv.

 

[Cain]

I mostly see it used pejoratively, and the complaints are usually hyperbolic (much like with "political correctness"). For some reason it's Sarah Palin screeching in my head, "The problem isn't hockey moms. The problem is 'woke' crowd pushing CRT!" As a term of endearment, it's also annoying. To be "woke" is similar to being "red pilled" -- seeing the world as it really is, maaaaan.