
Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge - nojs
https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=48302
======
seodisparate
So in Korean, the word for "you" is 니가 (pronounced "nee-gah"). Example usage:
니가 언제 먹었어요? (When did you eat? "Nee-gah un-jeh mug-uss-uh-yo") I can't help
but wonder if the use of this word would also elicit a similar reaction...

EDIT: I briefly forgot this, but there is a similar Korean word "내가" which is
"me" or "I", and pronounced "ne-gah". Example usage: 내가 이 밥을 먹었어요. (I ate this
food. "Ne-ga ee bap-uhl mug-uss-uh-yo")

EDIT2: Korean is not my native language so forgive me for this, but "you" is
usually just 니 ("nee"), and "me" or "I" is just 내 ("ne"), but the 가 ("gah")
part is used like a conjunction to connect to the rest of the phrase.

EDIT3: Ok, so I talked with a better Korean speaker about this and 니가 "nee-ga"
is sort of a regional dialect (kind of like a slang term) for 너가 "nuh-ga". 니가
"nee-ga" is more commonly used in southern parts of South Korea, as the proper
way of saying/spelling "you" is 너가 "nuh-ga". My Korean is influenced with the
southern regional dialect as my parents were from that region. Sorry for the
possible confusion. (So just "you" is 너 "nuh".)

EDIT4: PSY (of Gangnam Style fame) has a song titled "Champion" that uses 니가
"nee-ga" a
lot:[https://youtu.be/uA4fV7Y14eg?t=49](https://youtu.be/uA4fV7Y14eg?t=49)

~~~
logicchains
"You" and "me" are pronunced "nee-gah" and "ne-gah"? Those sound very similar,
does that ever lead to misunderstandings?

~~~
globular-toast
I know nothing about the language being discussed here, but the answer is no,
it doesn't lead to misunderstandings. How do I know this? Because it's a
natural language. The language exists for no reason other than the fact that
it works. If the words sounded exactly the same you could safely assume that
they either communicate the difference some other way, or the difference
simply does not matter to them.

An example of communicating something in a different way would be how in
Spanish the pronoun is completely dropped in most cases. This is because it's
completely redundant as the verb will be conjugated to include the pronoun.

An example of things not mattering is in English where we don't distinguish
between rivers that flow into other rivers and rivers that flow into the sea.
French speakers might be confused (how do you know whether it's a _fleuve_ or
a _rivière_?), but the answer is we simply don't care.

When learning a natural language, always assume that it works for them. Your
aim is not to be able to translate your language to theirs, it is to be able
to communicate your thoughts into their minds. Keep an open mind about what's
important to transfer and how this can happen.

~~~
hombre_fatal
> but the answer is no, it doesn't lead to misunderstandings

Natural languages offer misunderstandings between native speakers all the
time. A sentence like "Bajó" in Spanish or "They went downstairs" in English
can have many different antecedents for the listener to choose between (bad
subtitle translations can give you a master class in this). If I say "the food
is hot," do I mean it's temperature-hot or spicy-hot?

I would refine your statement to simply point out that natural languages
aren't damned by misunderstandings because:

(1) You have the tools to disambiguate ahead of time if you think it might be
ambiguous. "Maria bajó", "Maria went downstairs", "They both went downstairs
together".

(2) The listener can simply ask for clarification.

(3) It doesn't necessarily matter. The point of the story was that John
couldn't enjoy the soup, not whether it was too hot or too spicy.

All that said, I think the person above was just asking how similar the
pronunciation was between two words.

------
sudosteph
Just from watching that lecture - he seems like a genuinely good professor. He
provided tons of context before he introduced that example, and it's a real-
world example from a language that nearly a billion humans speak. By choosing
an example that is from a language that is foreign to most of his students -
he's helping his students understand that the actual concept he's teaching is
not just an english linguistic feature or a western-centric mannerism - it's a
communication pattern that occurs widely.

I feel bad for the future UCS students who will miss out on his class. I also
wonder to what degree this decision will have a chilling effect on the content
of other lecturers at UCS. Could history professors see this as a reason to
exclude primary content that reflects the racist realities of the past? Or
maybe music professors will reconsider whether they can teach the work of
artists who might be cultural appropriation? It's hard to say.

I hope that another university makes this professor a job offer - or at least
speaks out in support of his teaching. This seems so bizarre that I can only
reckon with it by imagining it's a west-coast cultural phenomenon. I certainly
wouldn't imagine this going down the same way in my home state (North
Carolina) - but maybe I'm underestimating how pervasive this extreme
sensitivity trend really is. There WAS an incident with a professor who got
suspended at NC State recently (
[https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article235...](https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article235747982.html)
) but in that case - the professor was publicly mocking his students in a way
that may or may not have been interpreted as sexist. Even if the suspension
for that scenario actually overkill (which I think it was) - it seems crazy
pants to put the professor who was thoughtfully teaching a lecture in the same
category as one who gets a kick out of insulting students for laughs.

------
gatvol
Again, context is everything. What an utterly spineless, pathetic response
from a risk averse management type - to throw their colleague under the bus.

~~~
csomar
I did some Chinese courses last year and "na ge" is something that will get
repeated frequently because of how Chinese make their sentences. There is
another one "nei ge". They are an important part of the Chinese language.

Edit: just watched the video. He was not teaching a chinese course. A bit of a
suspicious example he picked if you ask me.

~~~
DuskStar
On the other hand, if you're an African American doing a business deal in
China, it is also _almost certainly_ the best example, and might genuinely be
the most valuable thing that you take away from that class. Specifically,
"sometimes people speaking Mandarin say something that sounds like 'ni__er'.
It is not actually 'ni__er', and is completely unrelated to my race."

That could easily be the difference between "deal" and "end of relationship".

~~~
csomar
The filler word is "nei ge" and not "neh gah". The "ge" is pronounced as "gue"
and "nei" like "ney". But it might have been a totally innocent mistake.

------
ascar
> "Professor Greg Patton repeated several times a Chinese word that sounds
> very similar to a vile racial slur in English. Understandably, this caused
> great pain and upset among students, and for that I am deeply sorry. It is
> simply unacceptable for faculty to use words in class that can marginalize,
> hurt and harm the psychological safety of our students. We must and we will
> do better."

It's unbelievable that this "understandably" caused pain to anyone. There is a
linked recording of him using the term. Not only does this barely resemble the
racial slur, it is indistinguishably used in a context where it's implicitly
clear and even explicitly stated that it's a term from another language.

The dean and faculty should stand behind the professor and educate whoever got
upset about this that you can not expect punishment for obvious
misunderstandings.

Also, it might be really helpful to add (nà ge) to the title as it's
impossible to make out the essence of the article for anyone who doesn't know
the logographics.

~~~
frereubu
I think that microaggressions are real, that language really has import, and
I've been noticing those kinds of things more and more on a daily basis. But
this is entirely unwarranted and a gross overreaction.

Having said that, I also understand the terror that this kind of issue
generates in organisations. Imagine you're the dean of an institution in an
environment where people only read the headlines in their Facebook news feeds.
I can easily imagine the headline "Marshall School of Business refuses to
discipline lecturer who repeatedly said the n-word in class" followed by a
dissembling write-up of angry students and vague mentions of the fact it
wasn't intentional. This kind of thing can turn into a reputational firestorm
and do real long-term damage to student recruitment.

Deans of educational institutions are between a rock and a hard place. If they
were in charge of the narrative, it would be possible to be reasonable and say
"This wasn't something to be upset about, and here's why". But they rarely are
in charge of the narrative and want to shut these issues down as quickly as
possible.

I can imagine a reasonable way forward might be to get the students and
lecturer together to talk over the issues, and have a nuanced discussion about
differing languages, much like what's happening in some of the comments here.
But by the time you've organised that the firestorm is well underway and the
damage is already done.

~~~
pixel_fcker
This seems like a perfect example of why micro-aggressions are bullshit. Any
right-thinking person can see that those taking offence to this are wrong,
while the theory of micro-aggressions posits that because they are offended
their feelings are valid and the professor must be in the wrong.

~~~
frereubu
That's not the way I understand microaggressions, which aren't to do with
whether someone is offended or not. The idea is that if, for example, you're
black, and day in, day out, there are lots of little things that on their own
aren't worth being upset about (for example, people not holding the door for
you, pushing in front of you in line, crossing the road rather than walk past
you, assume you're low-level staff rather than a manager) it's the cumulative
effects of those small - micro - things that really adds up. The whole idea is
that they don't matter on their own, and if they were the exception rather
than the rule then they'd be easy to ignore.

In terms of what you're saying about this particularly case it's pretty simple
- what happened here is not a micro-aggression because it's not aggressive at
all, so the use of the term here by the dean is simply wrong.

~~~
pixel_fcker
From Wikipedia:

> Microaggression is a term used for brief and commonplace daily verbal or
> behavioural indignities, whether _intentional or unintentional_

It’s the unintentional part that I take issue with, which means that it’s not
on you to understand the context of my statement, it’s on me to imagine the
infinite variety of ways you might interpret my statement and vet them for
possible insensitivity before making it, which is obviously impossible.

I agree that your definition makes perfect sense but I don’t think the sort of
people who spend a lot of time worrying about micro-aggressions agree that the
intention of the “aggressor” matters, as is perfectly evinced by this
situation:

> “We would rather not take his course than to endure the emotional exhaustion
> of carrying on with an instructor that disregards cultural diversity and
> sensitivities and by extension creates an unwelcome environment for us Black
> students.”

~~~
craftinator
I think at some level this comes down to the age old argument of Ignorance vs
the Common Good.

An extreme but relevant example: If a person is ignorant of the harmfulness of
bleach, and injects their children with it with intent to cure an ailment, are
they guilty of a crime? If so, is it the crime of being ignorant?

So from that lens, can a person act aggressively without intending to? In a
technical sense, I think not. Aggression is, by definition, a state of intent.
When we say "act aggressively", we likely mean "act in a way that suggests an
aggressive intent". It's our interpretation of intent based on action.

An important note here is that it's our interpretation of someone else's
intent.

~~~
echaozh
I don't think emotional offence should be treated exactly like physical harm.
Different people may take offence from different actions, and it's not fair to
require everyone to judge accurately what is and what is not offensive to all
the other people they're going to interact with, especially in a society that
is aiming for diversity. In East Asia, where most people think alike, it's
easier to guess people's reaction, but it's definitely not so in other parts
of the world.

For physical harm, however, ignorance should not be an excuse. It may reduce
the responsibility, but it should not completely remove it. Not knowing
something can kill doesn't change the fact that one had actually killed.

~~~
bowties2cool
I don't know where you get the impression that in East Asia most people think
alike, though I won't call it microaggression but rather self-centered
cluelessness. Agree with your other points though.

------
newsbinator
Reminds me of this (2011):

[https://www.amren.com/news/2011/08/foreigner_on_ko/](https://www.amren.com/news/2011/08/foreigner_on_ko/)

> “A video is circulating on the Korean Internet of a black gentleman yelling
> at and threatening an elderly Korean couple. His violent behavior was the
> result of him misunderstanding the elderly man’s comment to him. The elderly
> man reportedly said “니가 여기 앉아” (a sign of consideration) (“You can sit here”
> = Niga Yuh gi anja”), but not knowing Korean, the man in question
> interpreted “니가” as the N-word which led to his violent outburst.

------
Insanity
This doesn't make sense to me at all.

Like.. in Spanish the word "negro" is "black". Can Spanish teachers now no
longer use that word? Crazy.

It's like when chat filters (e.g in games) censor words based on the 'English'
language. When I chat in dutch / flemish, my friends just see me censored for
quite common words in our language. And they're often not even spelled the
same as the English word that is bad.

~~~
csunbird
Two countries in the world are called Niger and Nigeria. Shall we stop talking
about those countries too?

~~~
originalbryan2
From what I can tell, those countries are now racist based on their names and
should be fired.

History books should be burned.

No human should ever speak to another human again.

But we all need to be in offices in close quarters once the pandemic ends, so
that we can fire each other for accidental using the word "she" in a
conversation.

------
KaiserPro
For fucks sake. This sort dumbarse action sets back the cause of equality by a
country fucking mile. This stuff happens when you take Dr DiAngelo too
seriously and ignore what minorities are saying and just go with your ill
informed guilt ridden heart.

Clearly he wasn't saying what is implied. I had assumed that "nà ge" was a
slur in mandarin(when I saw the original news report). Its 100% clear from
context that its nothing to do with race. Whats more the context is directly
linked to the three words he says.

We must strive for equality, We _must_ help wider society by lifting up
minorities.

This does not achieve this, in fact it will embolden the dickheads who want to
make this a "thing" (SEE! "they" want to undermine us etc etc etc)

~~~
high_derivative
' who want to make this a "thing" '

Clearly it is a thing, why pretend otherwise? If this were some extremely
small minority, it would not have such widespread cultural influence now. It
is a thing.

~~~
KaiserPro
I should clarify: by "thing" I mean "see this is why the [minority] are anti
american. lets punish them for not being grateful"

I strongly suspect that this decision was not made by someone from the
affected minority, so it seems unfair for them to shoulder the blame.

------
prerok
Some time ago a fellow countryman, a basketball player, made it into NBA.
After a controversial ruling by a judge that one of his teammates performed a
foul, he kept yelling "ni ga, ni ga, ni ga". Contextually translated, he meant
"he hadn't touched him".

He had to apologize profusely and explain to no end what he meant. Regardless,
his career was soon over after that.

We, non-native speakers, must be really careful about using words in our own
language that may sound offensive in the other language. What a world we
created :(

~~~
apexalpha
>We, non-native speakers, must be really careful about using words in our own
language that may sound offensive in the other language. What a world we
created :(

And it's in English as well. Growing up in Europe but heavily influenced by
American Music, Movies, TV and Internet one grows up thinking that N----- or
Nigga is fine to use. You hear it all the time, especially in music.

Couple that with the fact that we don't really have "career-ending words" in
Europe and it leads to a lot of awkward moments. You can't even say the word,
and Americans tend to censor the word even when anonymously typing it online.
I did because this is an American forum, but it's really weird to see to be
honest. You can't even say the word as part of a debate over the word.

A while back a Dutch coach was forced to resign after using the word because
it was in a song: [https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/feb/18/fc-
cincinna...](https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/feb/18/fc-cincinnati-
coach-ron-jans-quits-over-n-word-allegations)

The fact that you aren't even allowed to sing along with a song without muting
yourself on certain words that the singer sings anyway... it's just mind
boggling to me...

~~~
simongray
Yeah, I also noticed that Americans tend to handle every taboo word like
"Voldemort". From when I was kid I always found it so odd how Americans use
all of these one-letter variants of their taboo words (n-word, f-word, etc)
even when everyone involved in the conversation is an adult and should be able
to handle a bad word. It's one of the weirdest parts of their culture to me.

------
iagovar
Honestly, I'm shocked everytime I read this stuff from american universities.

Why is this happening? Because it's not the first nor second time that I read
about events similar to this one.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Why is this happening?

This specific case, I would bet dollars to donuts, happened because: (1) The
administration is hypersensitive in light of the wave of race related protests
and associated two-sided violence occurring in the country. (2) Someone aware
of the likelihood of that deliberately trolled the administration, probably
under a false flag, to produce an incident.

Possibly just for lulz, more likely than that in the hopes of benefiting a
particular domestic political faction, but even money it was done on behalf of
(though not necessarily at the direction of) a foreign power.

~~~
neonate
I also thought it might have been trolling, but this article makes that seem
unlikely: [https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-05/usc-
busi...](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-05/usc-business-
professor-controversy-chinese-word-english-slur)

 _To some students, the word sounded like the N-word in English. The next day
a group of Black master’s candidates in the class of 2022 wrote a letter to
Marshall Dean Geoffrey Garrett.

“There are over 10,000 characters in the Chinese written language and to use
this phrase ... is hurtful and unacceptable to our USC Marshall community,”
the letter said. “The negligence and disregard displayed by our professor was
very clear.”_

------
RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u
WTF. There's is literally a stand-up skit[0] on this. Moreover, any quick
research would show it's the Mandarin filler word. Plus, I dunno, just _ask_
the other Mandarin-speaking faculties and students?

Do you know the number 99 (nine-nine) sounds like the derogatory term for
mammary glands in Mandarin? Are they going to redact every instance of the
number on campus, on grounds of potential sexual harassment?

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrsWp07BwVk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrsWp07BwVk)

~~~
andi999
They didnt have to ask mandarin speakers. The admin agree that it is a
mandarin word, but that understandably people got upset because it sounds like
an US slur.

~~~
himinlomax
> understandably

That's far from understandable for the majority of commenters in this thread,
myself included.

~~~
andi999
Exactly. I shd have put it in quotation marks

------
latch
This word means "uhmm" and you can hear it dozens of times in a single
conversation.

It sounds like an English-language racial slur, but you stop being surprised
to hear it pretty quickly when living in China. The story isn't loading for
me, so I don't know the context, if this was a native Mandarin speaker
speaking in Mandarin...

Reminds me of the time someone pointed out that "salut" the french for "hi"
sounds like "stupid donkey" in Mandarin (or maybe Shanghainese, I forget).

~~~
ev1
The entire lead up to the professor saying it is the professor also explaining
how certain cultures like in Chinese have pause words. There is absolutely all
the correct context. The entire suspension is absurd.

~~~
clairity
yes, you hear it in chinese dramas all the time (which i watch subtitled),
usually as a phrase trailing off ambiguously/uncertainly. the incident seems
much ado about nothing.

------
BitwiseFool
Anyone who is taught to look for racism everywhere - no matter how minor -
will find it everywhere. The false-positive rate must be astronomical.

~~~
violetgarden
Yes! I am a female in the tech industry, and we are inundated with warnings
about going into a male dominated field. I’ve noticed it gets to a point where
some women can’t even receive criticism because they think “he wouldn’t talk
to another man like that,” even if the criticism is valid. I can see why it
happens though. We hear over and over about being harassed and put down that
we almost subconsciously get a chip on our shoulder about it.

I’m not saying that racism or sexism doesn’t happen. But I am saying I see how
a person can also take something as racist or sexist just because it’s
something you’re told to expect.

~~~
9HZZRfNlpR
O guess these things also depend on country, in Eastern Europe where I'm from
many high position successful women leaders have stated that gender quotas are
actually offensive and they wouldn't want to be so called diversity hire. I
think about it often how Americans who get into somewhere because of their
knowledge and skill but are part of some minority think affirmative action
(discrimination for us), it would be obvious for people to suspect then they
are only there because of lowered exceptions.

~~~
murgindrag
On the whole, Eastern Europe seems to have done much better with gender equity
than the US.

(That's a relative comparison)

~~~
thelastname
What is scary is that american gender stereotypes are becoming popular. In my
school times I never heard "girls have problem with math", on the contrary,
the majority of math and science teachers were women. Eastern Europe is unique
because we never really had our own petty bourgeois being effectively
colonized, so farmers became workers and workers became bankers. Someone
really should write a monograph about Eastern European Cooperative Banking,
it's quite amazing.

------
ceilingcorner
Two possible futures for ill-informed over-political correctness:

1\. It continues to be pushed by those at the tops of organizations, which
leads to a new pseudo-language of baby-talk that is constructed to be as
inoffensive as possible. Simultaneously a ‘black market’ counter-culture
emerges of those who don’t comply.

2\. The entire enterprise collapses under its own weight and exhaustion.
People get tired of being offended and move on.

~~~
eru
> The entire enterprise collapses under its own weight and exhaustion. People
> get tired of being offended and move on.

You'd hope so. But that complaint in the article might have happened
regardless: it only takes a few indefatigable die-hards to keep that machine
going.

~~~
pas
No, it takes the majority to constantly validate these intentional or maybe
ignorant dickheads.

A few complaints should not be able to make a university give in/up. They do
so because there is a big group amplifying the outrage.

~~~
eru
I agree with 'there is a big group amplifying the outrage', actually.

I am not sure a majority is necessary. There's no magic happening at 50%.

~~~
pas
You're right, just a vocal minority, let's say a plurality is enough.

~~~
darkerside
With Twitter, now all it takes is one person and maybe 100 stars (none of
which may actually be real). The "mouthpiece of democracy" is completely
broken.

~~~
a1369209993
> The "mouthpiece of democracy" is completely broken.

As... I don't remember where put it: You are not the voice of the people; you
just happen to be loud, and wearing a microphone.

------
OJFord
The craziest thing about this is that it wasn't - as I initially assumed - a
misunderstanding. The Dean's email says the professor used 'a Chinese word
that sounds very similar to a vile racial slur in English'.. 'Chinese'..
'similar'... ok, yes, and?

Edit: No - wait, it gets weirder -
[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/zoom_0.mp4?_=1](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/zoom_0.mp4?_=1)
\- he even introduces it! He doesn't just use it himself, he's actually
talking _about_ it!

> in China the common word [for pauses in speech] is 'that', so you might say
> 'that-that-that': 'nage-nage-nage'

------
stjohnswarts
It sounds like he can sue for lost and potential lost salary for sure. This is
not a legitimate reason to fire him if he was doing it innocently. Students
could have said something and he could have avoided it I suppose. However
whenever I hear the term "microaggressions" I know I'm talking with an idiot
who values being emotional over being logical and just stop the conversation.

~~~
tgv
It's apparently a common word, a demonstrative pronoun, similar to "that".
Pretty hard to avoid without language acrobatics.

~~~
Nbox9
Did you watch the video of him using it? While it’s a very common phrase while
speaking Mandarin, and while I do not think this is a fireable offense, the
professor could have chosen one of dozens of other examples in his lecture
very easily.

~~~
TechBro8615
I think this is all a huge overreaction. But I also watched the video and
honestly it looked like he was saying it because he knew he could get away
with it. That's the most likely explanation for why he picked Chinese as an
example of another language's "um" word. Just IMO though, no way to know for
sure. It was at least tactless. He knew how it would sound.

~~~
jiofih
Why the need to judge and condemn here? If it’s such a common word in Chinese
speech, have you considered that it may be a common word for him?

~~~
TechBro8615
He's a white communications professor from USA, so no not really

~~~
augusto2112
From his CV[1]:

\- "Professor Patton primarily teaches in USC’s Full-Time MBA Program and its
Executive MBA Programs in the U.S. and China"

\- "He has served as a key advisor to the Center for Asian-Pacific Leadership,
a faculty member at the US-China Institute and a leader of MBA learning
programs in China and Korea."

[1]:
[https://www.marshall.usc.edu/sites/default/files/gpatton/pci...](https://www.marshall.usc.edu/sites/default/files/gpatton/pci/20%20Vita%20Dr.%20Gregory%20H.%20Patton%20USC-1.pdf)

------
anonu
The comment at the end is spot on:

    
    
      Please know that there are many people that support you and are sick of this hyper-sensitive, McCarthyism-like environment that is being fostered across the country."
    

My view on this is it's the culmination of years of anti free speech trends on
campus. It's a sad day when universities which should be bastions of
tolerance, exploration and ideas have their culture consistently chipped away
at by people who get "triggered" so easily.

~~~
throwaway9221
It's not confined to universities, either. This growing list of "forbidden
words" is making its way into the corporate world, too. Coupled with spineless
HR who don't know how to constructively deal with people who claim to be
offended. My current company is undertaking a massive, probably thousand man-
year (sorry, person-year), effort to scrub all its internal and external
documentation and even source code of any forbidden words, replacing them
with, for now, non-triggering words. Not one person, to my knowledge has even
politely questioned publicly whether this was a good use of company funds. If
I was a shareholder I'd be outraged.

A small, core group of people loudly make this a huge issue of great
importance, while the rest of us just want to get our work done and stay
silent so we don't get fired by the woke patrol.

Honestly I can't wait until retirement when I don't have to constantly be
walking on eggshells at work. It's sad--I used to love working in tech but
it's insufferable now.

~~~
wildrhythms
Can you kindly provide an example of the type of behavior you might engage in
at work in absence of the 'woke patrol' (as you described it)?

~~~
vianneychevalie
In my personal case it would be using the words « master » and « slave » when
talking about interfacing databases

~~~
throwaway9221
Exactly. Or, say you're building some business logic and you need to make some
exceptions for VIP partners. In times past, you would add these exceptions to
a "whitelist" and have logic to check this list and apply the exception. Now,
you need to be very careful to call this an "allowlist" lest the woke patrol
pull you aside and warn you that your variable name is insensitive and non-
inclusive. I wish I was joking.

~~~
8note
In theory white list means allow only these things, and black list means allow
everything except these things.

In practice, white list means these are good things, and black lists mean
these are bad things.

Allow and deny lists are much precise since they only have the one meaning

~~~
OJFord
And yet whatever the origin (I suspect nobody can seriously claim to
definitely state the actual origin of such a term) its usage as such a list,
not referring (necessarily, but indiscriminately so some might be!) to black
people, dates back at least as far as the Restoration in 1660 England.

------
_peeley
Incredibly tonedeaf on part of the University - they claim to fight for those
that are marginalized, but how will the Chinese international students on
campus feel, now that a precedent has been set that they'll have to think
twice before speaking in their native tongue?

------
kristjansson
And at no point before it got this far did anyone ask ‘perhaps, part of the
knowledge we’re buying for $120,000 and part of the value our future employers
will impute into that degree is the cultural literacy and emotional competence
to discern when a Chinese colleague is saying “ummmmm” and when they’re
casually tossing out racial epitaphs midsentence?’

------
Renaud
Watching the video, I cannot fathom how anyone can interpret this as being a
racial slur?

This is a common idiom in Chinese, people say it all the time.

This is baffling and truly terrifying. Are we really there? This sort of
overreaching witch hunting is belittling the fight against racism.

Am I missing something?

~~~
orangecat
_I cannot fathom how anyone can interpret this as being a racial slur?_

Nobody believed it was. This was a a demonstration of power by the extreme
"progressives", reminding the faculty that they will do exactly as told or be
smeared as bigots.

------
mytailorisrich
> _Last Thursday in your GSBA-542 classes, Professor Greg Patton repeated
> several times a Chinese word that sounds very similar to a vile racial slur
> in English. Understandably, this caused great pain and upset among students,
> and for that I am deeply sorry. It is simply unacceptable for faculty to use
> words in class that can marginalize, hurt and harm the psychological safety
> of our students. We must and we will do better._

This was apparently written by a university dean, in a Western country, in
2020. Not during the Dark Ages or the Inquisition, in 2020.

Assuming it's true, if that does not make people pause and doubt human
progress, I don't know what will.

~~~
logicchains
And suddenly the president's call to defund universities for "radical left
indoctrination" sounds a tiny bit less crazy.

~~~
jiofih
It was never crazy, just a wildly disproportionate knee-jerk reaction that
ignores the real underlying issues, cultural and legal.

------
smallgovt
I think it's important to note that nowhere in the article (nor anywhere else
I can find) does it state that the professor was "suspended". Rather, it only
says that the professor will "no longer be teaching this class for the
remainder of the semester".

I think this is an important distinction because it leaves the door open to
the possibility that: 1) the professor voluntarily stepped down 2) the
professor will return after the semester is over 3) the professor is being
paid during this leave and will suffer no real professional consequences.

In other words, there's a real possibility that the Dean had the following
conversation with the professor: "Hey, I know this wasn't intentional on your
part, but this is quickly becoming a PR nightmare and I'd like to nip it in
the bud. Would you mind stepping down from your post for just this semester
until this dies down and I can get a handle on it? This will make everyone's
life easier & you'll still get paid anyways."

In this light, there's less reason to be outraged at the Dean.

~~~
ImprobableTruth
Even if that was the case, have you actually read the letter? It alone is so
ridiculous that it's worth condemning.

Hell, I think this bit does it alone:

"It is simply unacceptable for faculty to use words in class that can
marginalize, hurt and harm the psychological safety of our students"

Like, what? Are they going to outright ban all foreign words that could
potentially be misunderstood as offensive? Will Kant need a rebranding to be
allowed in class again?

It's unbelievable ethnocentrism and the fact that they actually have the gall
to claim that they're doing it as a part of addressing systemic racism has to
be the cherry on top. This is literally the same line of thought that leads to
asking others to anglicize their name because it is offensive.

~~~
smallgovt
I agree with you. My claim is that there's "less reason to be outraged at the
Dean".

If the professor was executed for this, for most people, there's reason to go
to war.

If the professor was fired, for most people, there's reason to be outraged.

If the professor was voluntarily placed on leave with pay, well, maybe you
still find reason to be outraged, but less so than the aforementioned
scenarios.

In any case, most people in this thread are assuming the professor was fired,
and that's incorrect.

------
himinlomax
I've always found the US obsession with taboo words quite baffling. I used to
tease Americans of my acquaintance by pretending to be offended when they said
"oh my god" (dildo in French) or nick (fuck.)

Context matters a lot in linguistic, and the Sapir-Worff hypothesis is not
just unproven, it's almost certainly completely wrong.

~~~
dgellow
Without trying to be alarmist, I have a feeling that's slowly spreading to
Europe too, at least France and Germany.

~~~
kebman
The Norwegian word for blacks used to be something that isn't allowed to be
uttered anymore. It started becoming a problem only after we got a few black
American migrants, and other migrants influenced by American culture to
Norway. These people didn't understand the context of the word, and so they
became violently offended when anyone used the word, even if the the word has
always been a completely harmless description and not a slur within Norwegian
culture. (Trust me, you'd _know_ if a slur was used!) But because it offended
so many newcommers, and since a synonym was readily available, Norwegians
didn't think it was a hill worth dying on, and so they just cut it out of
everday use. Today it is regarded as a big _faux pas_ to use the word.
Meanwhile some Norwegians still feel offended that foreigners who do not
understand their culture, take to dictating how Norwegians should or should
not speak. Personally I honestly don't know which is worse; offending someone
because you said something with the best of intentions, or forcing someone to
submit to arbitrary rules to avoid that they get offended, even if you utter
such words with the best of intentions.

~~~
__blockcipher__
> ... or forcing someone to submit to arbitrary rules to avoid that they get
> offended, even if you utter such words with the best of intentions.

Spoiler alert: this one is worse.

------
jimhi
那个 is the chinese equivalent to "uh/um". Just imagine how many times a
probably nervous professor would say "uh/um" during a lecture. The professor
also is likely not great at english or has a strong accent.

Not sure how anyone could mistake this for a racial slur with hateful intent.

~~~
jrh206
The professor isn’t nervous or Chinese - he’s explaining the same thing that
you explain

------
blanders
Geoff Garrett would have done well in East Germany. The unproductive
nomenklatura is oppressing the productive part of the population.

Why do humans always allow this to happen? The easiest way to shut down those
bureaucrats is to ask publicly what their actual intellectual output is.

They often tend to get very silent. Also works for whip crackers in the
software industry.

~~~
anthk
Funny enough, "nomenclatura" in Spanish means the act/state/art of naming
things. Such as Biology on new species. or Chemistry rules on new compounds.

------
djaque
I think all of the comments here that say "McCarthyism and cancel culture have
taken over our universities!" miss the point.

The real story is that in the US, we are politically polarized enough to buy
into the dean's story that this is the only reason for the suspension.

Universities are run as businesses nowadays and I can assure you that they
don't care about angry students unless there is money or prestige to be made
in appeasing them. At a past university I attended, class enrollment was
horribly broken causing people to miss out on courses they needed to graduate.
Basically the whole student body was mad and made it known and sent around
petitions, but nothing changed. The fix being pushed by students would
literally just require changing a config file somewhere and sending some
emails, but nobody cared.

If universities won't lift a finger for issues that cause campus wide outrage,
why would I believe that they'd suspend someone after a twitter minority gets
unreasonably angry about something like this. I'm at one of the super liberal
universities in the US and I can promise you that it really is a minority.
Even in the liberal arts classes I've attended, everyone I've met would be
like "yeah, that's an unfortunate mistake and at most you should probably just
inform him that the word sounds like a slur". I have literally never met
someone that would call for a firing except for on twitter. I've also taught
classes here and never met one, so I know it isn't a selection effect where
I'm in a bubble. I don't get to choose the students I teach.

There is 100% more going on than what the dean is claiming. Maybe it's
administrative drama. Maybe the professor wasn't pulling in enough grant
money. Maybe the university was eyeing his salary and knew about an adjunct
that will do it cheaper and thought that this would be a nice excuse to make a
change. From everything I know about universities and from currently working
at one, the guy didn't get fired for something as outlandish as saying a word
that sounded like something else. It just doesn't make sense.

------
s3r3nity
Just wait until they figure out what the word for the color "black" is in
Spanish...

~~~
salex89
For laughs, there is a hundred year old Hungarian/Serbian hard candy called
Negro. The author's name was Pietro Negro, and the candy is charcoal black
because of liquorice and doped with menthol, which gives it a distinctive
medicine taste. People love it or hate it, I love it personally. In the
meantime, more flavours are developed in Serbia, with eucalyptus, peppermint,
lime, caramel... And all of them called Negro because it's just a strong brand
name.

Nevertheless, every once in a while there is some wiseguy trying to make a
story out of it, just ruining the fun. If we really want to take that
discussion, I would argue that it's actually an homage to people of color,
being so popular yet unrelated to colonialism or slavery and treated like a
folk remedy for a sore throat.

------
valuearb
I once said in a senior staff meeting that we shouldn’t be niggardly with
employee benefits. A disturbing quiet dropped over the room and I realized a
half dozen white men and women were staring at me, while uncomfortably not
making eye contact with our African American Business Development director.

The CEO rebuked me saying that was not the type of language I should be using.
The Director of Business Development then spoke, he was a Stanford graduate
who was always the nicest smartest guy in the room. He gently corrected the
CEO, saying exactly what I understood, it was an Old English term meaning
cheapness that had no connection (other than its sound) to the racial insult
and he wasn’t offended at all.

Thank god for Johns erudite knowledge of historic English words and his
omnipresent empathy but think it illustrates an important point. Intent should
matter. Even if the word I used had a connection to a racial slur, I would
have been unaware and in no way would intentionally use such a slur, not alone
in a group of white men let alone in front of a valued colleague.

That word can never leave my mental database of descriptive terms and phrases,
but I fight against its use even more so today, afraid it might unconsciously
slip out.

~~~
asddubs
To be honest, when I hear someone use that word, I do assume it's primarily in
service of saying something that sounds like the n-word with plausible
deniability. It'd be something else if it was a commonly used word

~~~
ci5er
IMHO - you would be wrong. It is a perfectly good word.

This horse-shit has to stop.

~~~
asddubs
I don't know, you can tell that some people definitely like to play a verbal
version of the "I'm not touching you" game, or get off on telling people
"actually, it's not a slur". Obviously I'm not referring to what happened to
this professor, though

~~~
DanBC
> Obviously I'm not referring to what happened to this professor, though

Why not? He mispronounced a word, and seems to have deliberately chosen it in
order to be provocative. There are a million different pause words he could
have used instead.

------
ladberg
There have been tons of memes about this exact misunderstanding in SAT for a
while...

The first few times I heard it (as a native English speaker) it made my head
turn but it's such a commonly used part of Chinese that after hearing it for
the thousandth time you stop hearing it as English.

EDIT: After watching the video I have to say that the combination of
pronouncing it a bit off and surrounding it with English made it sound pretty
bad on the surface, but it definitely didn't sound intentional.

~~~
OJFord
It's not like he just threw it into an English sentence the way we often do
with French (when it seems the mot juste) though - he was actually talking
_about_ the word and its usage!

------
xmprt
Not sure if this link will always work but here is the instance being referred
to:
[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/zoom_0.mp4?_=1](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/zoom_0.mp4?_=1)

~~~
ordinarydev
He was suspended for that??? Ridiculous. Seriously, the far left has ruined
educational institutions. They are so obsessed with attacking "racism" or
"hate" even when neither are involved. They don't care about context, they
don't care about intent, they don't care about ANYTHING. This seriously needs
to stop

~~~
netsharc
As someone who is also quite a bit left, the actions of the university admins
is just aggravatingly dumb. I'd ask you to have nuance and don't classify all
the "left" as this idotic, hopefully you're not as reductionist as the people
who got "offended"..

~~~
29083011397778
I'd point out parent used "Far-left" in the same way I'd use Rar-right. They
absolutely would not be calling everyone to the left of center crazy, in the
same way I'm sure you wouldn't say everyone who is a member of the far-right
represents everyone who is right-leaning.

Assuming parent was lumping left-leaning and far-left together is hardly a
good-faith interpretation of their comment

------
teekert
From a movie I watched about 50 times as a youngster: [0] I wonder if such
humor will ever be made again.

(fyi, me and my friends were all white but big fans of Tupac and Snoop and
followed the whole Deathrow related dramas closely! Tupac is an absolute
legend to me still, what an artist, pure poetry, It's very nice to listen to
his music and get an idea about his life.)

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIk0abbYgXQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIk0abbYgXQ)

------
hliyan
"When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is
_decadent_. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label." \-- From Dawn to
Decadence (2000), Jacques Barzun.

Clarification: here the slur is "decadent", not the one mentioned in the
article.

------
ghgdynb1
Yeah USC never belonged in the top 25 US Colleges, but their current
leadership seems hell-bent on correcting any misconceptions.

------
vmception
That's ridiculous.

If anyone here vicariously forms opinions from black people telling you what
to believe, you now have my opinion.

------
dathinab
Warning: I'm not sure how to formulate that properly, I hope no-one gets
offended to much.

I think one of the worst thinks you can do is to be afraid of a word itself.
But that's exactly where it has come to. It often seems that just pronouncing
the n* word or spelling it out is highly offensive.

But IMHO this is super bad _for_ the people who are offended.

If there is a problem you should speak about it and this include pronouncing
and spelling the offensive word.

If you don't you are only helping the people which use that word as a insult
and a denouncement. You are now at risk of feeling offended or even threatend
from just hearing the word even if it's not directed at you , not used as the
insult and maybe you misheard (like above).

Demonizing a word when it's the contextual usage of the word which is the
problem isn't really helping anyone I believe.

Don't get me wrong using the word to insult, denounce or describe an person is
an absolute no-go and as far as I can tell should stay that way.

But when you speak about e.g. how someone breached that no-go and how that is
not ok you shouldn't be afraid to use that word instead.

And yes I'm not using the word here because I know how people can be offended
by it.

Still fear the abuse of words but don't fear words itself or the fear might
just eat you up.

(Abuse as n* _originally_ only described someone from Nigeria, like Berlin =>
BerlinER with some shortening. But yes this doesn't matter anymore at all and
might sometimes even be used to downplay the insult which is not ok.)

~~~
joshuamorton
FYI, your etymology is wrong. The n word derives from spanish and latin for
black (this itself possibly derived from the proto-indo-european for "night").
While Nigeria and the Niger river come from local African languages for
"river", although that pronunciation itself is probably influenced by the same
latin-for-black. What eventually became Nigeria was a British company founded
in 1886, well after the n-word was in common use for anyone of dark skin.

~~~
dathinab
Oh, thank you. Doesn't change much practically but it's very good to know.

------
rasz
Everyone knows you cant say shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker,
tits, and 那个.

------
nindalf
I heard my niece recite a poem in Spanish about a penguin - it's white in the
front, black in the back.

I wonder how long before the woke kids decide to ban Spanish or demand a
change in the word for "black".

------
Symbiote
The usage notes on this site for with the transcript of what the professor
said: its a filler word, sometimes repeated like English "um, um".

[https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/The_fil...](https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/The_filler_word_%22neige%22)

------
Jaxkr
Lmao. I go to school with a lot of mandarin speakers (CU) and it’s fun to see
non-Chinese-speaker’s ears perk up when they hear something so close to a
racial slur.

I made a joke about this exact scenario years ago.

~~~
nmfisher
> Lmao. I go to school with a lot of mandarin speakers (CU) and it’s fun to
> see non-Chinese-speaker’s ears perk up when they hear something so close to
> a racial slur.

Don't tar all non-Chinese speakers with the same brush. As far as I can tell,
this is a purely American phenomenon. No other country is so addicted to
taking offense that foreign languages are now danger zones.

~~~
Jaxkr
That’s fair. I should mention I’m in America.

------
phendrenad2
Okay this makes sense, everyone should know by now that being white and saying
the N-word in ANY context is a third-rail. USC likely doesn't want professors
who can't figure that out, what else will they screw up?

------
ilammy
There is a old joke that Americans are probably better off not knowing how a
Russian word for "a book" is pronounced.

------
TheOtherHobbes
Is it bizarre this is an MBA class?

What's going to happen when these aspiring business people visit other
countries?

------
worstenbrood
So much problems to solve and they choose this one?

------
ghoshbishakh
Shocking response from the management. I thought people in universities are
supposed to be educated.

------
mirekrusin
It's the first word you hear repeated in China, like kurwa (that one is
vulgar) in Polish.

~~~
jiofih
Incidentally in Portuguese “curva”, pronounced exactly the same, means curve.

------
bjowen
Putting this here because it quotes the statement of complaint for context,
which has got a bit buried - and it may address some of the more superficial
commentary:

[http://www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2020/09/04/usc-marshall-
pro...](http://www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2020/09/04/usc-marshall-professor-
placed-on-leave-after-using-chinese-phrase-that-resembles-racial-slur/)

------
danielam
When I was a child, I was in the supermarket with my mother and apparently I
was repeating some Polish phrase containing the infinitive “to be”. The Polish
equivalent is “być” which sounds like “bitch”. From what I’ve been told, it
drew some attention, but the impression I’m left with is that eavesdroppers
were more amused than offended. Similarly, my Spanish-speaking classmates in
school found it amusing that a common way to refer to one’s aunt is “ciocia”
which is pronounced like the Spanish word “chocha”. The same holds for English
words like “duper” as in “super duper” which sounds almost like the Polish
“dupa” (especially when spoken in non-rhotic English). This extends to brand
names (the name of the German lighting manufacturer Osram is a good example:
it is the simple future first conjugation of the Polish transitive verb “to
shit all over“).

Given how ubiquitous this phenomenon is, and how international UPenn is, I am
having trouble comprehending how a professor could be fired for a perfectly
banal Chinese expression which many of us have heard many times in American
cities with significant Chinese populations.

~~~
adfm
I just watched the video and in context, suspending this guy does a disservice
to: the student, who must learn to listen and process in context; the
educator, who must teach without fear; and the school, that loses revenue
because it becomes both feared and a laughing stock. If I've somehow been
misled, I don't mean to offend, but seriously, this does not bode well for
anyone in higher education.

------
maaaaattttt
When I read stories like this I can't help but think of Newspeak[0] from 1984.
From afar (not a native English speaker nor a US resident here) it feels like
a form of control over people through control of their language.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak)

~~~
stallmanite
As a native English speaker and US citizen / resident I think you are 100%
correct in your observation.

------
skrebbel
I wonder whether this would've had the same effect if he had said it in a
classroom instead of an online video lecture.

------
curt15
This rush to punish scholars for "incorrect" expression is reminesicent of
Mao's Cultural Revolution.

------
trashcan_
I guess the ship has sailed on academia resisting this nonsense

~~~
tasogare
It’s time for academics to fight for the right of « scholastic sanctuary » as
featured in His Dark Materials.

------
ipsum2
For people who are confused, here's an informative video on the phrase and
misconceptions:
[https://youtu.be/bqmO4yvoXwQ?t=46](https://youtu.be/bqmO4yvoXwQ?t=46). He
does a great job with the correct pronunciation too.

------
anonytrary
Intent matters, and we shouldn't be allowed to be lazy and assume others'
intent and then get angry at them because of our own assumptions. I don't see
how banning this guy for speaking his language isn't just the most blatant
normalized racism. This incentivizes people to remain ignorant and not learn
about others' cultures. This is an embarrassing direction for a University to
go in.

In general I think this micro-aggression/Karen-culture is an awful direction
we are going in. At some point, being offended at everything _is itself
offensive_. It is offensive to me that you choose not to understand me, and
instead get mad about some fictitious damages.

------
zozbot234
The funny thing here is that the professor is speaking English throughout, so
when he says 那个, 那个, 那个 … (as the translation for "that, that, that …") it
really sounds like the English derogatory word. That explains a lot of the
reaction, I think.

~~~
juiyout
context is being purposefully ignored here though.

------
ipiz0618
The pronunciation is very common in Cantonese, Mandarin, and Korean. If the
offended person ever visits Asia, he'd find himself punching literally every
person. This is extremely arrogant and disrespectful of other cultures. It's
even more bizarre that the college takes the report seriously.

For instance, listen to this (once extremely popular) song -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6QA3m58DQw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6QA3m58DQw)

No reasonable person would, or should be offended. I hope that person never
leaves his/her English speaking community.

------
runeks
> It is simply unacceptable for faculty to use words in class that can
> marginalize, hurt and harm the psychological safety of our students.

 _Psychological safety_? What does that mean?

I hate these vague, marketing-like terms. Just say what you mean: you find it
unacceptable to say something that causes a negative emotion. The problem is
that saying it like this makes it sound less problematic — because it is.
Whereas using the word “safety” implies a physical danger as opposed to just
negative emotion.

------
lehi
Are any unrelated observers trying to defend this suspension? How would one
even begin to go about doing that?

This seems like a topic where everybody can and does agree that the reaction
is wrong.

------
divbzero
_那個_ is a verbal filler [1] as common and as harmless as _um_ , _like_ , _you
know_ …

I remember hearing it as the punchline of a joke highlighting a linguistic and
cultural mixup. Never imagined the mixup would be taken as a serious offense.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filler_(linguistics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filler_\(linguistics\))

------
wedn3sday
This is so amazingly stupid it blows my mind. I've always thought the right
wing hand wringing over "cancel culture" was over blown, however this is such
a stupid case of over reaction that its making me re-evaluate my stance.

------
raincom
See the history of this B-school dean. He was the dean of Wharton b-school
before. Prior to that, he was a professor at Stanford.

B-school deans reflect the corporate America: virtue signaling. I think, USC
must be paying Dean Garrett at least a million dollar per annum or even more.
This is the expected behavior from people like him.

------
Acrobatic_Road
We live in clown world.

~~~
dang
Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

------
andybak
[https://web.archive.org/web/20200907082111/https://languagel...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200907082111/https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=48302)

------
andi999
This is obviously a prank/joke trying to fool you.... right? ... i mean
right?... it has to... omg ..

On a more cynical note, i am surprised they sacked him on a misunderstanding
and not on cultural appropiation charges for using a foreign language.

------
teekert
It says it means "That one" in Google translate? What's up with this?

~~~
prawn
I remember noticing in China that it seemed very common in Chinese casual
chitchat, but to Western ears it sounded inappropriate. In the context of a
lecture, I imagine it would come down to whether the delivery seemed genuinely
part of the point or an excuse to push boundaries. Hard to gauge without
audio/tone.

I can’t think of why you’d report this unless you had a serious issue with the
lecturer or they were being purposefully inappropriate.

~~~
ipsum2
Someone linked a video above:
[https://twitter.com/cabot_phillips/status/130151642427657830...](https://twitter.com/cabot_phillips/status/1301516424276578305)

------
rv-de
There you go:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j556MWGVVqI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j556MWGVVqI)

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Talks to [Students from a PC University Club]

------
baby
Here's what Russel Peters has to say about it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvnx1wcrbcg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvnx1wcrbcg)

------
m0zg
Suspended by someone who has never heard a Chinese person talk to another
Chinese person in Chinese. There's at least 1 "n-word" per minute there.
Professor should sue their ass.

------
alex-lx
The first time I knew the two words (那个 and n*gger) was from a report about
Yao Ming who was a basketball play in NBA. I just thought it'e more like a
joke...but, it become real and unreal today

------
calyth2018
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrsWp07BwVk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrsWp07BwVk)

Life imitates art in a bad way at times.

------
peignoir
Good summary : “Please know that there are many people that support you and
are sick of this hyper-sensitive, McCarthyism-like environment that is being
fostered across the country."

------
apexalpha
Ah yes, when I was in China I constantly heard people say it...

niggeh... nigge... nig uh.. depends a bit on where and who in China but it
sounds eerily similar to the untrained ear.

------
techolic
那个can be pronounced either (nà ge) or (nèi ge). When it's used in a pause,
it's most typically (nèi ge) not (nà ge), the title should be updated.

~~~
juiyout
depends on the locale, in my area almost no one says nei ge.

------
nix23
>psychological safety of our students

Are those student's even allowed to watch the news or is "Detective Barbie"
the only watchable thing?

~~~
ppf
Detective Barbie is very problematic due to extensive transphobic and gender-
normative storytelling. Here at the UCC (University of Corrected Culture), we
only allow our students to watch videos of kittens.

~~~
nix23
Damn you right! Thanks for the big laugh :)

Are you watching the Kittens in B/W or are colors allowed?

~~~
ppf
There are only colours, comrade. Whiteness is not acceptable. Sounds like you
need further education.

~~~
nix23
That thing:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2AitTPI5U0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2AitTPI5U0)

Would be sooo illegal then, see i learn fast :)

------
newyorker2
I've gotten heat for saying this in the past, but the "student" community of
certain academic departments are almost looking to be offended at anything
these days.

The perils of social media and cancel culture...

------
libraryatnight
This seems a rather nonacademic response.

------
crc32
If it was a German professor talking about buttermilk do you think he would
given a build up?

------
koonsolo
Am I the only one who finds it very ironic that you can't use the "n-word"
because it offends the African American community. Yet when you listen to rap
music, it's all nigga this and nigga that.

Makes me wonder if these offended students first complain, and then drive home
singing along with Snoop Dogg.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Am I the only one who finds it very ironic that you can't use the "n-word"
> because it offends the African American community. Yet when you listen to
> rap music, it's all nigga this and nigga that.

No, racists that are upset that it's not socially acceptable to demonstrate
their racism this way conplain about this a lot, you aren't the only one.

Also, within the African American community there has very long been a very
large group that has attacked this trend in that particular form of popular
entertainment.

And, finally, beyond that, context matters.

~~~
username90
> context matters.

Yet people get fired even when context is as benign as possible.

------
compsciphd
I heard nega (as in negative), not niga (as in shenanigan), are my ears off?

~~~
eru
If you grew up speaking mandarin, you would likely hear it yet a different
way.

~~~
compsciphd
right, but I'm just approaching it as a native english speaker born and raised
in the US would hear the word. I wouldn't think it has anything to do with the
N word.

As opposed to the those who think a synonym for miserly has something to do
with it (they are wrong of course, but at least that sounds very similiar to
the american english turned ear)

------
4ct1ve
lol remember 100 years ago when whistles got blown and men this age went over
the trenches to face their certain death so we'd have the freedom to cry over
being offended literally by sound waves

------
vanusa
To echo one of responses to the blog post: What a niggardly (and just plain
ludicrous) response to what could only have been an entirely innocuous
coincidence.

Not too long from now, USC will look back on this episode with a profound
sense of regret and embarassment.

------
mola
People like to blame progressive ideology for these sort of crazy stuff. But
actually, the real culprit is consumerism and customer mentality of students.
The professor was suspended because the faculty is terrified from upset
customers. Same goes for all cancel culture incidents.

The hyper producticised media , is using the upset sentiment to get attention
(racial clickbait triggers) But it's riding the tiger, so it needs to keep
pace with its own click bait to not get the customers to hate them and boycott
them.

This dynamics spills onto the academic realm. Students at US colleges consider
themselves customers. So they must never be made upset. They have silly optic
based notions of justice. And the faculty have to comply.

This is what contemporary information capitalism does. Consumes and kill off
any sort of idea turning it to plastic product and optics.

~~~
pnw_hazor
Can't let post-modernism and critical race theory off the hook.

Objectively, the statement was not racist and it should not be offensive to
anyone. However, objective thought is not in favor anymore as it is associated
with whiteness. We must accept the subjective view of the victims as
paramount.

~~~
mola
If you think that is the reason the dean suspended him, you are being naive.
He suspended him because he's afraid of financial repracussions.

The post modernism went off the rails because of the reasons I mentioned.
Otherwise it could have been a fertile ground for empathy and a way to
reconcile our differences. instead it ended up a culture war. Because our
culture is war. We are taught to fight and compete from day 1.

------
ashildr
This happens if people in power only speak a single language.

------
TheMagicHorsey
For a number of reasons, including this kind of political correct fascism,
cost, irrelevant coursework in 95% of majors, ideological approach to
knowledge, I think American Universities have jumped the shark.

------
evgeniysharapov
Ahhah, all this silliness makes me want to use word "niggard" and "niggardly"
where it's appropriate

------
javajosh
This action is so obviously wrong I can't but wonder if its not some prank. It
would be an ideal prank for the Chinese in particular, to audit the course (at
first as an attempt to see how Chinese language and culture is taught here),
and then stumble upon this coincidental pronunciation, in the context of a
tinder-dry atmosphere of political correctness, and send in (multiple)
complaints and watch America burn just a little bit more.

Truth is, if this was the case, then we deserved it. It seems sometimes like
America has split into the two races in "The Dark Crystal", and we very badly
need a reunification. We need the reason and open-mindedness of the left, and
the practicality (and romanticism) of the right. We need to accept the truth
that there are real differences between people (even groups of people) and
_celebrate_ those differences and not pretend they don't exist. We need to
accept the truth that racial/ethnic/religious bigotry is essentially a human
universal, which doesn't justify it but it also means you can't stop it with
law or strongly worded emails to university authorities.

So yeah, if the CCP is behind this one, I say: thanks. Hope we can learn from
it.

P.S. The culprit is the dean of the USC Marshall School of Business, Geoff
Garrett, not UPenn. Also, according to the LA Times it was a group of black
students, not the CCP. Feel free to call or write (213) 740-6422
ggarrett@marshall.usc.edu or tweet
[https://twitter.com/USCMarshall/](https://twitter.com/USCMarshall/)
[https://twitter.com/garrett_geoff](https://twitter.com/garrett_geoff)

~~~
whiddershins
It would never be accidental. In China, English language students are taught
to break that habit for fear of it being misinterpreted by a native English
speaker.

It could be opportunistically malicious though, to feign outrage. That’s not
beyond the realm of possibility at all.

Edit: people are asking how I ‘know’ this.

——

It is anecdotal, so I should have phrased it more carefully. When I was in
mainland China about 15 years ago I talked to several people eager to practice
their English, in various regions.

They were aware. One kid in particular I remember vividly having that
conversation.

But this was a very small sample.

~~~
hitekker
> It would never be accidental.

As someone with a number of friends from the mainland, I can assure you it
does happen by accident. None of them were taught to avoid saying “na ge”
because it is the English equivalent of "that" or "that one".

Where are you getting your information from?

~~~
whiddershins
It is anecdotal, so I should have phrased it more carefully. When I was in
mainland China about 15 years ago I talked to several people eager to practice
their English, in various regions.

They were aware. One kid in particular I remember vividly having that
conversation.

But this was a very small sample.

------
dudeinjapan
那个请

(na-ge please)

------
drevil-v2
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)

I am really afraid this is another sign of the death throes of Liberal values
and institutions.

They need to realise that pragmatism and nuance are acceptable and desirable
attributes of a sustainable and long lasting civilisation.

------
profthrow
why is this post not on front-page with 175 points in 1 hour whereas tons of
post with barely any traction from 20 hours ago are still there?

~~~
dang
This is in the FAQ:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html).
See "Why is A ranked below B even though A has more points and is newer?"

In this case, users flagged it and it set off the flamewar detector.

------
bezmenov
The video:
[https://twitter.com/cabot_phillips/status/130151642427657830...](https://twitter.com/cabot_phillips/status/1301516424276578305)

~~~
quickthrower2
Warning: strong opinions from all sides but very little of what is said in
that thread makes sense!

------
ppf
It's been obvious for a while that the US is primed for its own Cultural
Revolution. It's why I ironically support the various West-Coast separatist
movements, because the inevitable communist hell hole created would remind
folks how bad life can be. Also ironically, Trump be the US' saving grace from
all of this, at least for now.

------
guardiangod
Obviously, Chinese the language is racist. - An American, probably.

------
xg15
To play sort-of devil's advocate, while the concrete situation is completely
over-the-top, it's easy to imagine that "nà ge" could become an actual racist
dog whistle if widely enough known.

E.g., I personally believe there is ample room for criticism on the way the
Israeli government treats Palestinians (to put it mildly). There are some
attempts to define any and all criticism on the Israeli government by non-jews
as anti-semitism, which frankly seems ridiculous to me.

Nevertheless, it's also true that "solidarity for Palestine" and "criticism on
the Israeli government" are frequently used as covers and dog-whistles by
_actual_ antisemites. Marches in solidarity of Palestine can be easily be co-
opted by Nazis if the organizers don't work too actively prevent it, even if
the original intention was genuine.

In a similar way, white supremacists, racists, etc, might start to use "nà ge"
as a substitute for the slur and attempt to back down with some bullshit
excuse like "I was just speaking Chinese" when called out.

This is not advocating banning words preemptively because they _could_ be used
as slurs (nor banning pro-palestine demonstrations) but to stay vigilant.
Context matters, but this goes both ways.

~~~
benchaney
Since you are playing devil's advocate anyway, could you try to defend the
concept of dog whistles? Recent events suggest that if someone wants to be
racist they simply will, without any attempt to disguise it.

I also think it is too convenient to give one political movement the ability
to say that their enemies are secretly racist (aka evil) even though
everything they say is actually innocuous.

While the antisemitism example resonates somewhat, antisemitism withing the
anti-Israel political movements is: A) not coded at all, and B) not a good
reason to dismiss all anti-Israel arguments all of the time. Therefore, it is
hard to see how the concept of dog-whistles is at all useful.

------
__blockcipher__
But why are the students like that in the first place?

It sounded outlandish to me at first, but over time it seems more and more
likely that it could be the result of decades-long subversion campaigns that
sought to supplant western/enlightenment ideals with authoritarian-marxist
ideals which view speech as inherently dangerous:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion)

Maybe I’m disregarding Hanlon’s razor

~~~
pas
Students are "like that", because they feel powerless and complicit by slaving
away in a virtually for-profit education system, that they see as part of the
problem.

They understandably want change, progress, solidarity, etc. Basically think of
this as the very very very watered down version of a student protest. After
all young adults are the prime age cohort who are sensitive to social issues.
This requires no organized subversion.

~~~
koheripbal
It seems odd that students feel enslaved by the for-profit schools, and yet
attack everyone BUT the school itself.

~~~
pas
They attack those who they think represent the school. The dude they see in
the classroom. "Little do they know" the decisions are made by administrators.
(Only strictly research/science decisions are still handled by profs, but they
also don't really do much other than churn out grant proposals and papers.)

And this was seen in the debates (shouting matches?) that faculty members had
with students elsewhere. (I'm thinking about a video about some safe space
protest.) It was not some nameless administrator trying to persuade (and
educate) the emotional students, but someone that actually cares about
education yet the decision about not hosting a lecture by some controversial
figure is usually made by the administration, to play it safe. (While the
initial decision to host some event is usually made by some club/group,
approved by the administration. And that approval just gets withdrawn.)

Of course looking at this with a very reductionist first principles eye it
makes sense. Students don't want to learn from someone they don't consider at
least a bit an authority figure. So they then voice their grievances to them
too. And if the educator cannot do anything about those problems, then he/she
was just a fake authority figure all along. (And then just a bit of cognitive
dissonance helpfully informs them that from this it logically follows that
whatever said educator had said is wrong/useless. And so young folks go
ideology shopping, and that's why suddenly there are post-cultural Marxo-
modernists everywhere.)

------
hansjorg
This is so far out there that there must be something else going on.

From his profile, the dean (Geoff Garrett) does not seem like someone who
would be overly concerned with something like this.

Could it be a play for Trump? If not, is there something special with the
power relationship between the MBA students and the University? Could it be a
large company paying for their employees degrees threatening to withdraw?

------
jhanschoo
In combating against bigotry, it is important that we do not become bigots
ourselves.

Regarding painful words, it is my position that policies against uttering them
(for people without any intent to hurt) must essentially be no more a courtesy
to those sensitized against them, because of words with multiple meanings and
foreign languages with different meanings, and also because what is taboo on
one society may not be taboo in another. Punishing the reasonably ignorant
seems to be immoral to me.

Being sensitized to painful words spoken by people who don't mean them seems
to me that it needs to be counted not on the person who says them and does not
mean them, but on the people who said them and meant them and made people
sensitized to them in the first place. It is the continued damage created by
bigots, making words that in some situations are necessary to speak (or far
too inconvenient to not use) painful to some because of their bigoted use. The
rest of us can try to avoid them, but morality-wise, it looks to me more
supererogatory for those in a position to do so rather than a moral
obligation.

~~~
thinkingemote
Could you rephrase this? I'm not sure what the main points were.

~~~
jhanschoo
* In combating against bigotry (racism, xenophobia, etc.), we must be wary that our anti-bigotry policies aren't themselves bigoted.

* On slurs and other words that hurt: we cannot punish people who say them if we do not have proof that they intend to hurt. Some people think that even saying them unintentionally ought to be punished, because someone gets hurt even though none was intended. But because words like these so frequently get said

\- out of necessity

\- out of ignorance

\- because it is tremendously inconvenient (considering foreign language
meanings, multiple meanings, etc.)

it's unrealistic to put this onus on everyone to avoid these words, especially
when bigots can so easily make another word a taboo word. My position is that
it is a courtesy (and not moral obligation) to actively try to avoid using
taboo words and think of synonyms and circumlocutions to avoid hurting someone
when none is intended.

When analyzing the cause of the hurt, I think we should analyze the pain that
happens when hearing someone says a hurtful word unintentionally as not
primarily caused by the person saying the hurtful word, but by the person or
people that sensitized the hearer into feeling hurt upon hearing the painful
words, but having a delayed effect.

------
crc32
I can’t believe the reactionary comments to this.

Of course, we have no idea of the context. But if it was anything like the
linked video - and it could have been worse - it’s perfectly understandable
why students would be surprised and perhaps upset.

If you disagree, its worth asking yourself, what reaction would you expect if
you were a chinese professor enunciating the word “cunt” during a lecture,
with no prior warning?

~~~
baby
Do you get upset when you learn the word for "black" in spanish?

~~~
Kephael
Leftists are trying to change the Spanish language because all nouns are
gendered.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_Spanish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_Spanish)

~~~
baby
this "leftists are doing that" bullshit is usually an extreme right way of
dismissing everything

~~~
Kephael
I've just linked proof of this, what do you think the whole Latinx phenomena
is? I'm not saying fluoride in the water is a Leftist conspiracy.

~~~
baby
Where does it say leftist in your "proof"?

------
thinkingemote
For those thinking it's crazy, consider how we assume seeing trigger warnings
for rape etc before certain content are normal and approved in our societies.

It could be simply a cry for a trigger warning: this lecture may contain words
which sound similar to words which cause trauma. Sounds okay to me.

I predict that you will see these trigger warnings before Chinese subtitled
films, lectures which talks about the Chinese language at the very least
within a year. The university is ahead of the curve, this is progress and a
natural extension of current protections against reliving past trauma.

If trigger warnings in general are also considered crazy, to say so would get
you instantly fired in every YC startup and silicon valley corporation.

~~~
baby
if you're that sensitive you shouldn't try to learn about another culture

------
neilv
I just watched the video after reading the article, and the video -- if it's
of the incident to which people were objecting -- wasn't as cringey as I
expected it to be; _however_ , I would've hoped that an expert who was
lecturing about language and culture would've anticipated the problem, and
been more sensitive to it.

Maybe, if he saw the problem, he could've prefaced the example with warning,
or otherwise acknowledged the sensitivity. I didn't get a sense that the
offense was intentional.

The article had a comment that suggested someone didn't see how the similar
sounds were a problem.

One reason I would suspect it's a problem (which I heard in a TV show, in
which a character explains how an anti-gay slur is hurtful to them), is that
they grew up hearing that slur hurled in the context of other injustices, from
childhood.

I can also imagine that insensitivity to how hurtful a slur is could feel like
a signal that someone doesn't understand or care about the associated
injustices.

This hurtful mistake could be a learning moment for the professor, and maybe
he could then help a lot of other people to also learn something constructive
from it, and help everyone move forward in understanding and helping each
other.

~~~
tasogare
> I would've hoped that an expert who was lecturing about language and culture
> would've anticipated the problem, and been more sensitive to it.

I’m learning Mandarin Chinese and consequently have use "nei-ge" quite a high
number of times and I also happen to know English and it NEVER occured to me
it is somehow related to the n-word before today. People who want to see
racism could find everywhere anyway, it’s a lost battle.

Not using words that could be insulting in other languages is an impossible
tasks and ridiculous thing to ask given how many of them there is.

~~~
andi999
Its like the playing records backward craze in the 80s and trying to hear as
many satanic words as possible

