Populace vs. population

[Jamie (K)]

Spencer, I wasn't trying to say anything insulting about Hungary.

What I was trying to get across is that the only large Austro-Hungarian city I'd ever seen was Prague -- which I had been running around for a few years. (I didn't live there, but when you live in the Czech Republic you have to travel there for something or other all the time.) When I got to Budapest, everything looked almost exactly the same as in Prague. The ordinary architecture was the same, the streets looked the same, there was a big river running through the city. Everything was the same, except that nothing was the same. I felt as if I should know where everything was, but I didn't. That was why I had that surrealistic feeling. I wouldn't be confused that way going from Madison to Minneapolis, from Poitiers to Bordeaux, or from Bonn to D?sseldorf, but for some reason the two Austro-Hungarian cities stuck me that way. The only difference was that at that time I seemed to note more cultural and economic sophistication in Budapest than there was in Prague. (This was in the early 1990s.)

I didn't mean any insult to guys named Attila. One of my favorite Hungarians is a very kindly professor named Attila. I had never heard before of anyone being given that name, and it was a surprise. It's very common in English to refer to a really bad, scary, unpredictable boss, teacher or criminal as "Attila the Hun", and in fact that's one of the first comparisons that comes to people's minds in that situation, even among people who don't know who Attila the Hun was. Since the typical American has never heard of or met any other person named Attila, nobody notices a problem.

We have this problem in my family with the name Adolph. The most beloved man in my family was my mother's uncle Adolph. We'd love to name kids after him, but we can't. And I felt sorry for a student I had from Libya named Osama. Most people here have never met a person named Osama, and even though people know he's not THE Osama, it still startles them. It would be like having a handsome, cheerful appliance salesman graciously introduce himself to you as Tom Hitler. You know he's got nothing to do with the famous Mr. Hitler, but you'll have to know him for a while before you can get the image out of your head.

I happen to like (but not always agree with) George, so that's not a problem for me. I am very close to the Iraqi refugee community here -- which is very large -- and if George ran for the office of God, most of them would vote for him. So let's not get into that. There's no winning those arguments.

Don't worry. I've always had a GREAT time in Hungary, and have beloved friends there.

[Spencer]

Hey Jamie,
this is really shocking that Attila the Hun is a bad guy, I've been taught thouroghly different in the school, that is why I didn't understand why You were saying such things of him.
It's not our fault, I'm sorry for this misunderstanding.
But, You see I got You with George, because I didn't refer to George Bush, I really was writing about saint George, the dragonkiller, and in Hungary sounds like:
Gy?rgy, a s?rk?ny?lő,
and if we hear this name rather this,not George Bush crosses our minds.
The best way to learn of each other, from now on I know what Attila means to the world, and You know what the name George reminds Hungary.
This was a really interesting talk though, one of my co-workers said this was more interesting than a movie on TV.
Spencer

[Jamie (K)]

[Spencer]

?lő means killer, this poison thing is either wrong, or just a too old definition to be heard by someone like me
Slowly killing poison - lassan ?lő m?reg (?lő is killing)
About this Attila I only remember one thing from school, his coffins. According to the legend, they put him in a gold coffin, then the gold coffin (with Attila) had been put in a silver one, and finally in a coffin made of iron.
This whole thing was dropped in the Tisza (river) , and a lot of people are trying to find it because of this.
Since You mentioned this daddy of ours, I've asked some people about him, but no one remembers anything else, except he was a tough guy, who was burried this way.
I've never thought that I was gonna learn Hungarian history in this forum, thanks Jamie
Spencer

[Jamie (K)]

A year or so ago they showed a documentary on the History Channel here about Attila and his raids through Europe. I was startled to find out that he was a military leader and politician who could be negotiated with. In some places they actually made deals with him to make him back off. The reason this was surprising was that we were always raised thinking he was just some kind of irrational animal who led a bunch of mad horsemen through Europe to rape, burn and pillage for no particular reason.

That's one of the three great history surprises of my life. Another was about the Inquisition. We were always taught that the Catholic church just went crazy executing a lot of people as heretics and witches. I find out later in life that the church's inquisitors were actually lawyers who were brought in because the secular leaders were killing masses of people with no standard of proof. They actually reduced the amount of killing instead of increasing it.

The third one was about Cortez and the conquest of Mexico. They told us that the bad, bad Spanish could just roll over the Aztecs and flatten them, because the Aztecs thought Cortez and his men were gods. Then I read an eyewitness account and found out that the Aztecs quickly figured out the Spanish weren't gods, after they killed one of the horses. It made me realize that Cortez could not have taken over Mexico with just a few shiploads of men, and told me that when he got to Mexico City he was backed up by an army of tens of thousands of Indians who were angry about having to send gold, silver and human sacrifices to the capital every year. Apparently Montezuma was as brutal as Cortez.

Real history books are full of surprises.

[Spencer]

About the inquisition, I thought the same as You did before, because all the movies show that Catholics killed as much as they could with no mercy.
There is another saying about Hungarians in Mexico.
A friend of mine is from Mexico and she told me that when children didn't behave themselves, parents were usually threatening them by telling that the Hungarians would take them away.(kidnap them)
In her case this saying had come true, because her husband is Hungarian and they live in Canada, far away from Mexico.

[Jamie (K)]

[Spencer]

In my language boh?m means someone who enjoys the bright side of life, likes spending money on girls, drinks, not reliable, but we still like him, because he's never worried and (if not broke at the moment) never cheap.
The word boh?m carries a positive meaning, we only use it with respect mostly about a friend, or a relative.
Jamie, the word "gypsy" has become disciminating in Hungary, the proper word is Roma.
In my language their name was cig?ny(ok), but this word is inappropriate from now, and only they are allowed to use it for each other.
This causes some funny situation, for example in a restaurant You don't know how to order "cig?nypecsenye" and it wouldn't be a big deal if it wasn't one of the best foods ever.
In Canada I had a good friend from Yamaica and he was surprised when I told him that in my country the word "n?ger" is not offensive, but if I sad "black" then I'd refer to the color of his skin, so it's rather discriminating.
It took a while till I got used not to use this word,but we have this cake called n?gercs?k (cs?k means kiss) and a friend of mine said aloud (we were in a bus stop surranded by black guys) that he missed it so much and he would like to have one.
When I told him to be quiet,he said that it was the name of his favorit cake for God's sake!
We were lucky ,I'm still alive

[Jamie (K)]

In English, gypsies are supposed to be called Romani, but nobody uses the term, because we don't see people of that ethnicity here, and people don't really know about them.

The word "bohemian" (with a small B) is not usually affectionate here. It generally means someone who lives an "alternative" lifestyle -- unreliable, very promiscuous, doesn't work much, has a lot of stupid ideas. I think "boh?m" means the same thing in Czech.

I know about those predicaments with the names of various foods not being politically correct anymore. My mom had some names of candy that you wouldn't dare say even 30 years ago. One of these candies came to be known as "milk chocolate babies".

It's kind of stupid, because changing the accepted name of a group is an attempt to change their reputation, but the bad reputation always catches up with the name, and they have to change the name again. In the US, over decades, we went in this direction: colored > negro > Negro > black > Black > African American. Every time they changed the name, it became a derogatory word in a few years. The funny part is that "African American" has too many syllables, so most of the time the people themselves call themselves "black", but whites are held to a different standard. They get nervous about making a social mistake, so they end up saying "African American" to black people, but saying "black" to white people, just as the blacks say to each other.

[Spencer]

I must agree with You, this kind of situation can cause a lot of confusion.
For example if a Romani doesn't look like one but he uses the word gypsy, people might think he's a racist, even if he's a Romani.
If a word becomes inappropriate it shouldn't be used by anybody without exception,otherwise it could be an other kind of dicrimination.

[Jamie (K)]

[Spencer]

Amen