Lost between two history reviews
You know that weird feeling you have when you focus on a word and read it several times in your mind, and it starts feeling weird, and special perhaps, like the word starts making no sense? No? Well I duno about you, but I was searching on Facebook for some Teomen, and I read several times the name since there are about 28 Teomen on Facebook including me. So I read my name over and over and over again in my head, and after reading it about 10 times it started jumping out, and it gave me an impression of being unique, rare and uncommon. The more I read it, the more I thought "wow... is that really my name? My name is really Teoman?"... and then I started feeling special... I felt as if my name was really special. And it is, I mean I never really payed attention to it before in my life, but several things came up to my head:
-I have a Turkish name
-I have a rare Turkish name
-I have an ancient Chinese-Hun-Turkic name
-My name is more than 2200 years old (apparently the first Teoman was born in around 200 BC).
-I have that name, it's mine
-I do not have a common name
-I have a historical ancient ethnic name....shit.... I guess I should be proud....
And I felt proud.... I did, I just thought "damn, I'm neither John nor Peter nor Abdel-Khader (now a common name in France btw), I'm Teoman... it sounds international.... well bluntly speaking, the "Teo" part makes it sound Christian, and the "man" part makes it sound English (but that's what the French say about my name "ah tu t'appelles teo-homme hahahaha qu'est ce que j'suis drole!"), but what I also mean is that it's not difficult to pronounce. There's no click in my name (c.f Russell Peters), no spit-like sounding consonant (c.f. Arabic or German), no tongue swallowing (c.f. Vietnamese), no teeth grinding or intonation (c.f. Cantonese and Mandarin), or no ellaborate consonant combination to make a sound (like "ph" or "cz" or "kt" or "x".... or even "!xo"), it's just plain "Teoman".... tayomahnn... of course it sounds better when pronounced in an Ural-Altaic language like Turkish or Japanese, but it still is easy to read in most languages. Of course the french automatically have a French-turett (sp?) and pronounce it "Teyomon" (in with an ending like a french adverb such as "exactement" or "maman"), and when I tell them my name is Teoman, they are truly masters at polluting my name and turning it into some freestyle ass Frenchised (harhar) version of this royal name. I get the classic "Théoman" which is the most common mistake they make. Then when I correct them I still get a mistake and it's "Téoman" (French pride; ACCENTS ON THE 'E'!). It's ok at first, but I take it badly when people I've known since ever still write it wrong, ie. My French family!
Do you know how hopeless it feels when at x mas or my birthday I get a card and on it is written "Théoman"? Of course I'm not gonna get pissed about it, it's not like I'm the only one who gets his name misspelled, but please!!! 19 years later they still misspell my name!
That's not all though, I actually got this once only, but it was I think the most elaborate mistake I've ever seen in misspelling my name. I was invited to this guy's birthday party once, and he gave out invitation cards to people, and on my card, my name was spelled "Théomanne".... I was speechless... I just didn't know what to say, whether I had to laugh at it or be all like "wtf".... but wow... I mean damn, there is no way you can make this name more Frenchised (harhar bis)!! This guy must either be a genius or a total ignorant. Of course, it's not his fault, but that was the most advanced mistake I've ever seen for my name.
But you know what? If you're going to write my name down, don't be French; don't just write it down the way you think it's written. Ask me! Ask me how my name is written, don't just try to guess and distort 2200 years of history in one name... I'm proud of my name, and so far nobody else than the French have distorted it! (yes... the French again...) But don't get me wrong, I'm not pointing at the French, it's not my fault if they continuously make mistakes. Hell it was even on my final exam in high school "Was France a terrible mistake?" I got a B+ for that question if I remember well... ahh... thank you Mr.Bunting.
But anyway, all this to say that I have a rare name, and that I'm damn proud my parents named me that name now.
But you know what sucks about this name? Since it doesn't sound really Turkish to westerners, but more like an extension of the Théo family (Like Theodore, Theophile, Theo...), my name is not efficient in proving that I'm really Turkish, hence Asian! If my name was something like... Mehmet Pasha or Ali Demiroglu people would say "yes, your name is Turkish, hence you're Turkish, hence you're Asian", but when you say Teoman Pontais it's more like "eeeeeerrrrr!!!! Your last name is Pontais, hence French, hence Not Asian! And your first name doesn't sound Turkish to me, phony!!!"
That's the catch. But I still like my name, even though it doesn't feel like Turkish to the ignorant people.
Sigh.
From Toronto with spelling mistakes in his name brought to you by the French,
-Teoman
-I have a Turkish name
-I have a rare Turkish name
-I have an ancient Chinese-Hun-Turkic name
-My name is more than 2200 years old (apparently the first Teoman was born in around 200 BC).
-I have that name, it's mine
-I do not have a common name
-I have a historical ancient ethnic name....shit.... I guess I should be proud....
And I felt proud.... I did, I just thought "damn, I'm neither John nor Peter nor Abdel-Khader (now a common name in France btw), I'm Teoman... it sounds international.... well bluntly speaking, the "Teo" part makes it sound Christian, and the "man" part makes it sound English (but that's what the French say about my name "ah tu t'appelles teo-homme hahahaha qu'est ce que j'suis drole!"), but what I also mean is that it's not difficult to pronounce. There's no click in my name (c.f Russell Peters), no spit-like sounding consonant (c.f. Arabic or German), no tongue swallowing (c.f. Vietnamese), no teeth grinding or intonation (c.f. Cantonese and Mandarin), or no ellaborate consonant combination to make a sound (like "ph" or "cz" or "kt" or "x".... or even "!xo"), it's just plain "Teoman".... tayomahnn... of course it sounds better when pronounced in an Ural-Altaic language like Turkish or Japanese, but it still is easy to read in most languages. Of course the french automatically have a French-turett (sp?) and pronounce it "Teyomon" (in with an ending like a french adverb such as "exactement" or "maman"), and when I tell them my name is Teoman, they are truly masters at polluting my name and turning it into some freestyle ass Frenchised (harhar) version of this royal name. I get the classic "Théoman" which is the most common mistake they make. Then when I correct them I still get a mistake and it's "Téoman" (French pride; ACCENTS ON THE 'E'!). It's ok at first, but I take it badly when people I've known since ever still write it wrong, ie. My French family!
Do you know how hopeless it feels when at x mas or my birthday I get a card and on it is written "Théoman"? Of course I'm not gonna get pissed about it, it's not like I'm the only one who gets his name misspelled, but please!!! 19 years later they still misspell my name!
That's not all though, I actually got this once only, but it was I think the most elaborate mistake I've ever seen in misspelling my name. I was invited to this guy's birthday party once, and he gave out invitation cards to people, and on my card, my name was spelled "Théomanne".... I was speechless... I just didn't know what to say, whether I had to laugh at it or be all like "wtf".... but wow... I mean damn, there is no way you can make this name more Frenchised (harhar bis)!! This guy must either be a genius or a total ignorant. Of course, it's not his fault, but that was the most advanced mistake I've ever seen for my name.
But you know what? If you're going to write my name down, don't be French; don't just write it down the way you think it's written. Ask me! Ask me how my name is written, don't just try to guess and distort 2200 years of history in one name... I'm proud of my name, and so far nobody else than the French have distorted it! (yes... the French again...) But don't get me wrong, I'm not pointing at the French, it's not my fault if they continuously make mistakes. Hell it was even on my final exam in high school "Was France a terrible mistake?" I got a B+ for that question if I remember well... ahh... thank you Mr.Bunting.
But anyway, all this to say that I have a rare name, and that I'm damn proud my parents named me that name now.
But you know what sucks about this name? Since it doesn't sound really Turkish to westerners, but more like an extension of the Théo family (Like Theodore, Theophile, Theo...), my name is not efficient in proving that I'm really Turkish, hence Asian! If my name was something like... Mehmet Pasha or Ali Demiroglu people would say "yes, your name is Turkish, hence you're Turkish, hence you're Asian", but when you say Teoman Pontais it's more like "eeeeeerrrrr!!!! Your last name is Pontais, hence French, hence Not Asian! And your first name doesn't sound Turkish to me, phony!!!"
That's the catch. But I still like my name, even though it doesn't feel like Turkish to the ignorant people.
Sigh.
From Toronto with spelling mistakes in his name brought to you by the French,
-Teoman
posted by Goreface69 at 10:49 PM
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