Just wait until they figure out what the word for the color "black" is in Spanish...
Guess what the N word comes from...
Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge
31–40 of 540 posts
Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge
#32> 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 b…
Students of Swedish or Danish at this university will (presumably) be ignorant of the word "slut" (end, finished), and maybe the number six ("sex" / "seks") too.
"We will start the Danish course with the numbers. En, to, tre, fire, fem, fem plus en, syv, otte, ni, ti."
Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge
#33I'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.
Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge
#34It says it means "That one" in Google translate? What's up with this?
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…
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Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge
#35That's ridiculous.
If anyone here vicariously forms opinions from black people telling you what to believe, you now have my opinion.
Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge
#36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.
Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge
#37Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge
#38This 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.
Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge
#39I'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.
Without trying to be alarmist, I have a feeling that's slowly spreading to Europe too, at least France and Germany.
Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge
#40> "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.