The furore over Dick-shit

It is funny to see the Indian media going all self righteous over the alleged racial slur by the NZ news anchor who said two things

1. that he found it very funny that the name was dick-shit

2. that it was appropriate since it was an Indian

part 2 of the comment was obviously obnoxious and silly, but we live in a world full of silly and stupid people and cannot go around reacting to all of them. The other part is what I will restrict myself to, since this is a pronunciation blog.

Now will someone tell these half-baked Indian television anchors that they should first get the pronunciation right themselves before pointing fingers at others. 90% of the anchors pronounce the name as 'thick-shith' (the 'th' indicates the softer sound). The correct pronunciation of the name is 'theeck-shith'. Both the first and last consonant sounds are soft. If you can read Devanagari script then read it as दीक्षित. 

You cannot blame an English speaking person for approximating the way he hears most Indian anchors pronounce it, as 'dick-shit'. And then wondering what kind of name that is! 

While on this topic, I am appalled at the way, the Indian anchors are mauling the names of all the medal winners in the Commonwealth Games 2010. I think the African continent would be particularly sore with the way we are mauling there names. But many Indian names are being mauled as well. Will try and cover that later.