From: mba2@Rosie.UH.EDU (D-Poon)
Subject: Re: Namely Dysfunction
Reply-To: mba2@Rosie.UH.EDU
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 13:01:14 GMT

In article <1992Aug31.185503.6612@Firewall.Nielsen.Com>, mgundeko@pcserver2.Naitc.Com (Murthy Gundekota) writes:
>My rn lost track of an article where the poster gives several
>instances of Indian names chosen by the parents to extract common
>American nicknames. Honestly, folks this thing sucks! Indeed when I
>find a Murugarajan calling himself Mike or Bhadranjaneyulu treating
>himself with Bill, I can see the clash of Titans, resulting in the
>tossing of visceral extracts. I call the disease of not able to name
>themselves or others properly: ``Namely Dysfunction.'' The dysfunction
>is manifest among those who can't think beyond cliches--namely common
>nicknames such as: Bill, Mike, Mary, Anne, Pat, Dave, etc. To claim
>the lack of dysfunction is to prove that they are creative. Hmmm...let
>me demonstrate that I don't have a dysfunction. So let me deliberately
>pick a complex name: Andapindabrahmandam (it means in Sanskrit: the
>universe as a whole encompassing everything from seed to semen). A
>dysfunctional brain comes up with Andy for males and An(ne) for
>females, almost instantaneously. Of course, if you were
>flustered with that name, so much power to your dysfunction. 
>
>You can throw everything out of the window and call Mr/Ms.
>Andapindabrahmandam, `friend,' `pal,' `dude,' `yo,' `chum,' `buster,'
>or anything one level of abstraction above a nick name. The downside
>is, if you didn't know how to pronounce `Dahmer,' and you don't eat
>Wisconsin cheese often, mixed with road-side snow into a Wisconsin
>cheese slurpy, and called him `chum,' then you end up swearing in
>front of the judge to testify that you didn't get a heart transplant
>recently by jumping the long waiting queue of heart patients even if
>the forensic specialists couldn't complete the puzzle of a piece-wise
>complete body without a heart. No, sorry, that's not your fault and
>you don't have a clue.  You can solve this problem by calling Dahmer,
>Dachsund, Dasher, Damner, Dinner, Drummer, Dumber, Dimmer, etc.
>Thankfully, his parents solved this problem for us as Jeff. Now all
>the Jeff's cover your face, close your eyes, and run with your limbs,
>so long you have all these body parts or alternatively, if you are a
>cheesehead. 
>
>Unfortunately, a lot of these dysfunctional parents don't understand
>the significance of having a unique nickname. I know this popular guy
>whom everybody called `Betal.' It goes like-`Bay-Tall.' Now that's a
>surfy far reaching name. It's unique and most importantly can be
>compressed into `two syllables.' Remember, the charm in any nicknames
>is the two syllables. The closer they match with `Do-Re-Mi....' or in
>Indian music `Sa-Ri-Ga-Ma...' the better. I know there are 7 such
>sounds in Indian classical music, so by juxtaposing two at a time, you
>can produce 7P2 = 42 musical-sounding two-syllable names. That's not
>much, is it? The baby boomers fill up not only the land with diapers,
>they occupy the sound waves too. Anyway, you have to fight for your
>share of band-width in the air waves. 
>
>To resolve the limbo of Mr(s).Andapindabrahmandam about whom we
>know nothing of, we can't give a nick name that is an abstraction
>of his(her) impression on others. For instance, a Yo-Yo I know has a
>gait that goes back and forth (should've been called a Pendulum). In
>his case the nickname has nothing to do with his original name. Guess
>why the girl was nicknamed as Six? Your guess is wrong! 
>
>To solve the naming problem, we will assume our client,
>Mr(s).Andapindabrahmandam, is something and then come up with a
>nickname. Suppose our client is a computer programmer, then a suitable
>nickname is Ada. The following table is constructed with such
>associations:
>
>
>Big, extra large, body				Dam
>Big protruding boobs				Bra
>A pain in the neck				Pin
>A novice in everything				Dab
>Wearing one bra always				Abra
>Works as a middle man				And
>Works as a care-taker				Inda (pronounced
>						In-Die)
>Imitates everyone				Apin
>
>
>Not bad! We have now some original nicknames like Inda, Abra, and
>Apin. All nicknames are extracted by a simple rule-of-thumb: should be
>part of the original long name and must have two syllables. 
>
>After this little exercise you should be able to conclude that the
>longer the name and the more Indian the name is, the better your
>chances of extracting a unique nickname. If you haven't come to this
>conclusion by now in your life, as an Indian parent or independent
>child of Indian parents, then you are dysfunctional by definition. But
>not to worry, you will soon be all right, because you have read my
>article so far.
>
>:-)
>
>
>Murthy
>>>>
Mr. Murthy, I'm so confused.

I read the above, it took me a good while.  And you know in the time that
it took to read it, I still couldn't figure out why you took 4 pages to say
very little.  You talked about Dysfunctional parents.  You rambled.  I don't
know if I am going to be able to carry on conversations with you if it takes
you four pages to make a point. 

But anyways, I'm curious where were you raised.  Namely the U.S., overseas, or
the homeland.  I was raised here.  I understand very well the need for an easy
nickname for a child.  I do not necessairly agree that parents should give
christian names to their "hindu" children just to make life easy for them. I
think there are a host of indian/hindu names that are easier to pronounce.  I
believe the problem lies in, correct me if i am wrong, the fact that the
indian languages (i.e. Hindi, etc...) have 36 vowels and consonants and the
anglo languages (i.e. English, Spanish, etc..) have only 26.  

Do you have trouble pronouncing an oriental name.  I believe the sounds 
produced in that language cannot be mimicked easily in our native tounge.

Do not condem parents for choosing names, that are not quote "native".  We
may both agree that we would prefer to name our children with Indian names,
but we do can not aggree that all people should do so.

Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian