A friend of mine, a primary school teacher, told me about a child who had come from India with his family. His name was Swastika. Apparently, in India, the word has something to do with Buddhism and means “the mark of well-being.”. The family was new to Europe and had no idea of the connotations that the name had in Europe. They were told of the meaning in the country they were now in and asked if they would mind if the child was referred to as Swasi. They said yes. Not sure how it would have gone down, shouting Swastika across the playground in front of passersby.
'The power of accurate observation .... is commonly called cynicism by those that have not got it.
We had an Asian guy start where I worked and he asked everybody to call him Rocky. Lovely guy, and once I knew him better I asked him what his actual name was. It was Shantilal (not sure of the spelling) and he said everybody he met thought it was a girls name, so he used Rocky instead of needing to explain every time he met somebody new.
On the subject of accents, my wife doesn't have much of an accent but her sister has a very broad local accent. They were both brought up in the same house, went to the same school etc. I wonder why their accents are so different. They were like that when I met her so she hasn't changed it over time.
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The family was new to Europe and had no idea of the connotations that the name had in Europe. They were told of the meaning in the country they were now in and asked if they would mind if the child was referred to as Swasi. They said yes. Not sure how it would have gone down, shouting Swastika across the playground in front of passersby.
'The power of accurate observation .... is commonly called cynicism by those that have not got it.
George Bernard Shaw'
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”