South Korea strikes back!

[krispos42]

<snip>

After the landing gear failure of the Southwest flight at LGA they showed this graphic with American pilot names “Captain Kent Parker Wright”, “Co-Captain Wyatt Wooden Workman”.

They even went as far as making up fake names for people to interview. Flight instructor “Heywood U. Flye-Moore” and skeptical passenger “Macy Lawyers”.

Well played Korean TV, well played.

http://slothed.com/2013/07/23/korean-news-station-pokes-fun-at-ktvu-with-fake-american-pilot-names-after-southwest-airlines-landing-gear-failure/

Brilliant!

[Igel]

1. And lamely so.

They're playing to Americans.

So let's see:

The faux Korean names were intended to sound Korean to English-language ears and were parsed as English phrases, without regard to actual Korean or how the names sounded to Koreans. While the probable intent was simply to poke fun at the phonotactics of a "strange" language, it was taken as offensive and intentionally demeaning by a wide range of Koreans and others.

The faux American are intended to sound English to Korean-language ears and are parsed as English phrases, without regard to Korean or how the names sound to Koreans. The probable intent is to sound as puerile as the faux Korean names but don't sound especially demeaning or humiliating.

Net result: If the faux Korean names poke fun at the Korean "Other" and are strictly English-centered, the faux English names poke fun at the Korean "Other" at least as much as they poke fun at Americans and are also strictly English-centered. Sometimes silence really is golden.