As a linguist, this is bullshit. McWhorter’s deal is to bend over backwards to excuse racism.
@nytimes.comIn Opinion
Early in Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign, “it was easy to assume that failure to learn his name reflected a failure to take him seriously,” John McWhorter writes. But “as a matter of pure linguistics, it would be surprising if people didn’t have trouble with the name Mamdani.”
nyti.ms
Opinion | I Now Mispronounce You the Likely Next Mayor of New York City
A lot of people seem to trip over Zohran Mamdani’s name. The reason may not be as simple as it seems.
