Kiksuya – Telegraph

Published June 14, 2018 · Updated July 6, 2022

I’m writing in for the first time and it’s not even to do with the episode much. I don’t expect you to read this on the Telegraph episode, and I’m also fine if you don’t even post it on the site, in case you’re uncomfortable with it. Just, please, read it.

It’s about your concern with the pronunciation of the name Akecheta. The first time his name was spoken in the episode, I said to myself in my mind “Shit, they will get hate mail.” First of all, those people are fucking hyenas, just scouring for an opportunity to be outraged and you happily gave in to them. What a huge coincidence that all of them wrote in only after the episode where Akechetas’ name was spoken, trying to be holier than thou. The thing that really got me to write this, were the words from Ainsley, calling your pronunciation grating and disrespectful. I’d like to know how he/she (continuing with he) pronounced his name up till now; the way Ford did or how his tribe did or some 3rd way? Also, the way he worded the leading sentence (“For the love of all that is holy…”), is almost certainly just to overexaggerate the level that this really bothers him and to sound overly outraged.

What got me, is how quickly you (Gene and Dick) cowered and started to apologize, for such a minor and unimportant “mistake” (quotes, because it’s not really). I understand that you want to satisfy and be kind to everyone, but you have to draw a line somewhere, show some courage now and then and resist the complete nonsense. Don’t give in to every demand and critique of these losers, and let them mop the floor with you. Also, the way Dick tried to push it all on Roger, like “he started saying it like that, we only repeated after him” is just childish behaviour, distasteful and not how you treat a friend. I understand it was said (probably) in a half-joking manner, but still. While I’m writing to you, I want to say something for Dick (if he reads this) and the way you were pronouncing ‘Bernard’: nobody who is sane and is not metaphorically searching for a fight on each street corner should be bothered by that, because it’s such a minor error. They (=the bothered) should try to speak coherently for an hour and constantly be vigilant of every mistake they might make. For most of them (including me) it would likely be constant “uhms” and “ehms”, trying to put together logical sentences while analyzing a show as complex as Westworld. You generally don’t give yourself enough credit for the high level of language you run on your show.

That’s it, I just want to say something as a side note, maybe to make you understand a bit better, why those complainers bother me so much. I come from a really small country in Europe (Slovenia), that has its own language. Due to our obscureness, we almost expect other people to not know us or to not be able to point us out on a map (or to mix us up with Slovakia :). And that’s okay, things like that really shouldn’t be expected of the general population, otherwise we would all spend a considerable chunk of our life just learning and updating our knowledge of every country on Earth and learning it’s peculiarities. Apart from the biggest countries that really matter and are shaping the world, that’s knowledge that you so rarely need and in case you intend to travel to some of those smaller ones, you can look it up beforehand. I’d like to give you an example here: The only sport I watch is alpine skiing. Sometimes I watch it on our national channel, other times on British or German channels. Each one has their own commentators. Most of the people that compete in skiing are from one of the European countries or from the US. Do you think that each commentator says a name of each competitor perfectly, the way their native commentator would say it? Nothing like that. When a foreign commentator is saying a name of a competitor from our country and they say it in their own accent, with their own twist, do you think that I get outraged and start to berate them on Twitter? That would be bonkers.

I hope this email doesn’t come over feeling like me attacking you because that’s not my intent. I would just like you to stand up for yourselves when an out-of-touch charge like this gets lobbed at you again.

Stay great, all four of you.
Uros

Subscribe Now