# Was this offensive, or just plain dumb? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 27, 2002, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-offensive-or-just-plain-dumb/116239 "2002-06-27T14:54:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![owlofcreamcheese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/97f17d/32.png) [@owlofcreamcheese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlofcreamcheese)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-offensive-or-just-plain-dumb/116239/21 "2002-06-29T03:42:51Z")
you people are getting way to worked up on this. sports casters are often more for adding color to storys… than giveing hard news. he is right… I bet 99% of the people on earth do not know the guy. local news sports casters are alowed to have favorites… people they root for. newspapers are good for the hard facts on some sporting match. I think basicly he was being pro Andre Agassi because he liked him. being like “oh, and some loser no one ever heard of beat him… hmph!” ---
**Author:** ![tolyri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@tolyri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tolyri)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-offensive-or-just-plain-dumb/116239/22 "2002-06-29T03:58:28Z")
“I doubt Mendez or Nguyen would have thrown the guy off.” I know plenty of people who still pronounce Nguyen “Nugent”. as in Ted. Is it that hard? It’s “when” people, “when”. With a bit of a accent of course. Vietnamese is a very difficult language to conquer, but trust me, if you can say Nguyen, you’ve got the upper hand. ---
**Author:** ![tavalla](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tavalla/32/89_2.png) [@tavalla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tavalla)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-offensive-or-just-plain-dumb/116239/23 "2002-06-29T04:07:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by xejkh \* > \*\*It’s not really sree-char-farn since ph in Thai does not equal ph in English. It’s (IIRC) an unaspirated p (put your hand before your mouth and try to say p without a puff. That p will be unaspirated) \*\* What I wrote _is_ probably wrong - but it was just a demonstration of how easy it would have been to at least make a stab at writing it phonetically and having a bash, rather than resorting to the reporter’s dumb-ass tactic. I didn’t make that very clear in my post. ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-offensive-or-just-plain-dumb/116239/24 "2002-06-29T04:56:35Z")
Alex, I will take over reacting for $100. My last name shouldn’t be that hard to pronounce but %95 of the people screw it up. I don’t find those who screw up my name to be idiots or anything. They just don’t know how to pronounce my last name. At the same time I would be a liar if I told you I could pronounce ‘Paradorn Srichaphan’. Slee ---
**Author:** ![The\_Wrong\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b782af/32.png) [@The\_Wrong\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Wrong_Girl)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-offensive-or-just-plain-dumb/116239/25 "2002-06-29T05:52:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by owlofcreamcheese \* > \*\*you people are getting way to worked up on this. \*\* I really haven’t seen too many people getting worked up–just giving their opinion on whether or not they think this is dumb. This thread has basically validated my original opinion that the guy was just being stupid. > [@](#): > > \*\* I bet 99% of the people on earth do not know the guy. > \*\* Hmm…I’d be willing to bet a whole lot more people know who he is now, since he just defeated Andre Agassi. Flesh this one out for a sec–every player that we consider amazing had to come up from somewhere, and had to beat someone else to win and become known in the sports community. What if you had this attitude about everyone? Should we only highlight established sports stars on the news? Seriously, to say that sportscasters are more “color” than “hard news?” I can think of some examples where you could argue that, but sports on the nightly news is just that. News. It’s information that people who enjoy sports want to know. And for this sportcaster to say that he’s going to deny us hard news because he can’t pronounce the name and we wouldn’t know who the player was anyway is pretty moronic to me. Is it a big deal? No, not really. Did it annoy me? Yes. Was the guy not doing his job? I would argue yes again. ---
**Author:** ![Tenebras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@Tenebras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenebras)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-offensive-or-just-plain-dumb/116239/26 "2002-06-29T23:51:31Z")
It could be worse. The local talking head here in Santa Barbara the other day actually ended the coverage of the pledge of allegiance thing by saying > [@](#): > > leading constitutional scholars agree that “under God” is a statement of fact, not religion. It was… interesting to say the least. Tenebras [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-offensive-or-just-plain-dumb/116239.md?page=1)