Butterfield wrote:

I'm sure there's something that hasn't been revealed - either about the people tied up or the farmer himself. Two young males don't just end up tied on the back of a quadbike by magic.

I must say that was my first reaction yesterday.

A new problem has developed. I’ve just had to switch off Sky News. The presenter keeps talking about Comma La. I can’t take this type of mispronunciation - you’re British, some Americans might sometimes pronounce it in a way that somewhat sounds like that, because that’s what they do to the letter A, but you don’t need to. Just say it normally. Sky have also been murdering the pronunciation of Vance, as Vahnce as is in dance. It’s f***ing Vance, short A - it’s Scottish. Comma La and Vahhhnce - unbearable.

The Call of the Wendigo wrote:

I’m going to email if there’s much more of it. Don’t they bother with style guides at Sky?

Instinctively, I pronounce it K'maahla.

But have been led to believe the official way is, "Kaahmala."

I says it Kam-ahhla.

I’m the same, I made the mistake initially, saw her in 2019 offering a correction in a ‘get to know me’ clip, and stuck with it. I’m very good with people’s names, I think it’s a basic.

I say KAmala, emphasis on the first A, modifying my English pronunciation slightly but not doing a ‘hard to pronounce or make stick in my mind’ over correction. It’s a transatlantic A.

It’s not flaming Comma La.

I believe Wendi's "K'maahla" is the incorrect way, though I've heard even Democrats call her that.

And that both "Comma La" if you're American and "Kamma La" if you're British are fine.

Basically, if you pronounce it the wrong way you're r*cist and need to educate yourself.

No, basically not that you’re racist, that’s not what is being said at all (although it certainly can be - all that Kamabla sh*te. Nor in the case of Vance as Vahhnce - just that it’s a bit rude to mangle or shorten anyone’s name without permission.

The Americans aren’t really saying Comma, they’re saying Kama with an American A which is similar to but distinct from a British O, or from an American O. But it’s distinctively an A. I don’t know why this one is so hard for some people.

It’s not her, or those who know how to pronounce it and who find it grating to hear these near endless permutations, who have a problem - socially, never mind racially. It’s those who insist it doesn’t matter, or that an objection is PC gawn mad.

Before /n/ or /m/ (as in ran or ram), /æ/ is raised and diphthongized to [ɛə] or [eə] (a widespread shift throughout most of American English). Elsewhere, /æ/ is lowered and backed as a result of the California vowel shift.

But we don’t do either, so pronouncing it as anything close to comma sounds like a p*ss take. It’s more like the a in ‘calm’ - in how we say calm, not Americans. CALM-uhla. It’s not that hard. Certainly telling a black woman she doesn’t pronounce her own name properly and you’d rather stick to your mangling after being told is verging into racism.

It’s Sanskrit for lotus, so she’s not pronouncing the first A the typical Californian way either, but how her mother must’ve - you can see it’s the female version of Kamal. When was the last man called Kamal called Comol? Never.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_(name)#:~:text=Kamala%20is%20a%20Sanskrit%20word,given%20name%20for%20Indian%20boys.

No British English speaker - unless they’re trying to be offensive or ignorant - has ever struggled getting Kamal right.

We know how an Indian speaker would say it because we’ve all met Indian guys called Kamal. It’s identifiably an A in at least the first A. Not an O, or an E, or I, or a U. The three vowels sound different to any English speaker, but nobody expects an English speaker to do an exact copy of in Indian persons L because that becomes a nasty parody - you get the vowel approximation right, that’s basic manners. It’s just rude to mangle someone’s name - take race right out of it and the point stands. Why would you do it? There’s nothing there to defend and no reason to pretend someone’s playing some kind of race card to be awkward. Putting race back into it, she’s likely had a lifetime of people doing it to her deliberately.

The Sky presenter was British. When talking of the opponent, she wasn’t talking about Dahhnild, which if she was doing an impression of how he says it she would’ve been. It’s just not OK, it’s grating, it’s a parody of how you think someone with another accent talks - and that is rude. This isn’t racial, it’s basic etiquette. We don’t say Dahhnild, or Comol, or Comma La.

Andrew Tate's brother pronounced it the k'MAHla way, which led me to assume that that was the wrong way.

Quote :

The presenter keeps talking about Comma La. I can’t take this type of mispronunciation

Her supporters seem to enjoy it though - https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=%22comma+la%22+shirt&iax=images&ia=images

Because they’re Americans, so it’s closer - it’s not a merger but it’s enough to be close enough for a jokey play on words to work. This was a British reporter. No British reporters mimic an approximation of American pronunciation for names - we never hear of Dahhnild in the middle of serious reports. It was so grating I had to turn off. There was no need for it. And the poor woman can’t even correct her own name without being accused of ‘playing the race card’ - it’s just all so rude.

In America the race card doesn't have to be played, it's always there face up on the table.

And anyone who it might apply to is held face down into that face up card.