Meanwhile, in America

[madd0ct0r]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sfgate ... 352298.php


Matthew Hubbard, a mathematics professor at Oakland's Laney College, has been placed on administrative leave after emailing a Vietnamese student and instructing her to "anglicize" her name against her wishes.

A series of emails between the professor and student shared on social media reveals that Hubbard reached out to a student named Phuc Bui Diem Nguyen, and wrote, "Could you Anglicize your name. Phuc Bui sounds like an insult in English."

She said no, and said if he continued pressing this she'd file a complaint against him

Matthew Hubbard, a mathematics instructor at Laney College in Oakland, told the student, Phuc Bui Diem Nguyen, that her name "in English sounds like F-ck boy" and that she needs to "understand" that her name is "an offensive sound in my language," according to the screenshots.
(She's Vietnamese American)

"If I lived in Vietnam and my name in your language sounded like Eat a D---, I would change it to avoid embarrassment both on my part and on the part of the people who had to say it," Hubbard wrote. "I understand you are offended, but you need to understand your name is an offensive sound in my language."

He then referred to her as P Nguyen for the zoom classes.
There is an irony that I've heard, that bui IS very close to a Northern slang word for dick. The prof was closer and wronger then he knew.
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Online chatter are making a deal that he didn't even ask her the correct pronunciation, but in fairness it's going to be very close to fuck boy. Since I can't find a screenshot with diacritics it's not really clear*, and all would be within range of accented English Fuck Boy. I consider that argument to be pretty weak.

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*Interesting, really, that Anglican font codes dictate a certain Anglicisition of her name already. So there's another nuance there.

And perhaps I'm a hypocrite as even though my kids will have Vietnamese name portions, we'd probably avoid difficult/bully bait names like Phuc Long. And when I'm in Vietnam, I adopt a simplified family nickname rather than my Celtic one which is hard for Vietnamese to say.

I think the professor is bang out of order though. It's not something I'd tolerate in the workplace.

[chimericoncogene]

The Prof's complaint is a little odd (just call the girl P.B.D./Nguyen and avoid the full name), but I can see the rationale for administrative leave only if he strongly and repeatedly pressed the issue and threatened measures (which might well have been the case, considering the blow-up). One comment or two and a few head shakes and understanding nods would probably be acceptable, if broached cautiously and sensitively, but Profs aren't known for their consistent good moods or always being nice to students.

My name comes with an English add-on name tacked at the end of the phoneticized ideograms. So, IMO, a tack-on name is another option, I guess.

[Solauren]

People need to STOP being offending by similar sounding or looking words in other languages. It's as simple as that. (People also need to stop making jokes about peoples names having a different or crude meaning in different languages as well.)

I find administrative leave to be acceptable. Especially when he could simply call her 'Ms. Nguyen', or asked for the correct prononciation, or asked to call her 'P.B' because he was unable to say her name correctly and didn't want to inadvertently offend her with his mis-prononciation.

[Gandalf]

Yeah, this is fucked up. I'm glad they put the guy on leave.