Comments on: Logos

By: Mark in Boston

Mark in Boston — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:36:05 +0000

Sports commentators don’t pronounce Italian names correctly either, like Conigliaro. (But then did Tony Conigliaro pronounce his own name correctly?)

By: mkilby

mkilby — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:07:31 +0000

My great grandmother (who was born in Poland) used to lament that American sports commentators could never correctly pronounce Polish names. Of course, it’s one thing to fracture the name of a visiting athlete, but I now believe that in many of the cases she was referring to, the names belonged to Americans with Polish heritage, who in all probability did not pronounce their own names according to Polish rules.

@ mitch4 (16) - Given that the native term (at least for the language) is “Magyar” (the official name for the country is several syllables longer), he was probably just thankful not to hear bad puns about being “Hungry”. German doesn’t use “Magyar” either, here the country is called “Ungarn”.

By: mitch4

mitch4 — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:06:11 +0000

(And I don’t know if Zsolt was a hung Aryan. We weren’t that kind of friends..)

By: mitch4

mitch4 — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:04:03 +0000

One of podcasts I follow has a guest segment they call “Random Notes from Canadia”. That segment is done by a Canadian woman who of course knows the name of her country but is happy going along with a joke.

I had at one time a colleague-student in computer science who was Hungarian but didn’t much notice whether Americans called his country Hungary or Hungaria.

By: target4cactus

target4cactus — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:01:00 +0000

Back when the Olympics were (supposed to be) a pure amateur event, the skiers were still pretty quick about taking their skies off and making sure the logos were visible.

Maybe the joke is about “brand name” products. Putting a logo on an item does not really make it any better, but there are those who think it does. (Mind you, the engineering, materials and manufacturing processes that goes in to some products _can_ make a difference).

By: firedmyass

firedmyass — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:46:43 +0000

The correct answer to her question is “a skier who is less ham-shaped.”

By: Elyrest

Elyrest — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:48:50 +0000

Keera (12) - Thanks for responding to Judge. I was hoping you’d show up before I spent anymore time searching myself. Maybe the commentators think that because Torino was used for Turin that they could extrapolate Norwegia. Src666’s comment (11) was probably right.

By: Keera

Keera — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:35:52 +0000

Judge #10, I can understand your concern about the lack of correction, because according to the urban dictionary, Norwegia is where dumbbells think Norwegians are from, and the urban dictionary is right. I had to look it up because I myself have never heard of “Norwegia”. The Norwegians call their country Norge (NOHR-geh) or sometimes Noreg and the language “norsk” and the people “nordmenn” (”north men”) (yes, the women, too).

(And in case anyone is wondering why I don’t say “we call our country Norge,” it’s because I’m not Norwegian. I’m a bona fide California girl. I just happened to move to Norway as a kid and I am now a permanent resident where I get to enjoy all the perks of nazism - you know, like socialized health care.)

By: src666

src666 — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:17:22 +0000

Judge - I suppose the easiest explanation is to remember that most of the announcers are former “jocks”.

By: Judge Mental

Judge Mental — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:26:33 +0000

Speaking of the Olympics, and I know CIDU has an international audience, I have a question regarding a certain Scandinavian country. On multiple occasions, I have heard the announcers refer to the country of Norway as “Norwegia”. The first time, I assumed I misheard. The second time, my wife heard it also, so we both had a laugh at the knuckle-head who thought Norwegians come from Norwegia. After hearing about 5 different announcers say it, I have to started to second-guess what I thought I knew. Even if there were that many ignorant people, certainly somebody would have started correcting them by now, right?

I thought that it might be possible that “Norwegia” is Norwegian for “Norway”, but searching the web, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Depending on the site, it looks like it might be possible that “Norwegia” is Polish for “Norway”, but it doesn’t make sense that an American broadcast of an event in Canada would use the Polish language to describe Norway.