Josiah Duggar: Part 5

[Nargus]

10 hours ago, mydoggoskeeper said:

When I lived in London, I must have thrown many of the natives a loop with my accent because I can't tell you how many times I was told I don't look "American."   For the record, both sides of my family have been American citizens for at least four generations and I have five ancestors who fought in the American Revolution.  

My best friend and I went out to the bar for my birthday once, and a guy came up to us and tried to start up a conversation. When we responded, he suddenly looked really dejected, and said "Oh, I thought you'd have an accent, you look really foreign"  

What does that even mean? I'm pretty nondescript Caucasian. 

My grandma always reminds me that on her side of the family, we were in Canada 'before Wolfe took Quebec'.  So pretty firmly in the "just Canadian" category, with a healthy appetite for Ukrainian and Polish food, and Scottish and Irish libations.

[Kelsey]

7 hours ago, Four is Enough said:

I have a friend who talked about her husband a lot, but I never saw a picture of him until this blonder than blonde woman showed me one.. he was born in Hawaii, had Polynesian features and coloring .. and it just surprised me, because I knew she was Mormon, from the mainland, and she noticed that I was surprised. I tried to cover it by saying how "exotically handsome" he was..she was quite gracious, and told me how they met in Hawaii, but I was so embarrassed and didn't know how to express my embarrassment and complete shame at being taken aback. I want to say, "it wasn't racist", but why would I have been so surprised?

I have done the same thing and totally felt like a jackass for it. It was a super Southern co-worker of mine and she said let me show you pictures of my kids. She showed me the pictures of her children (who were both beautiful) but were mixed race (black/white). It took me by surprise and she could tell. I was so embarrassed. I don't even care if people have mixed relationships or children. I guess I was surprised because I'm from the south and people usually awkwardly say something like "my husband is black" or something like that to let you know, incase you're one of the type of people that's going to have a shit fit. It was a good 10+ years ago and I still feel like an asshole about it.

[front hugs > duggs]

My sister is adopted from a southeast Asian country (the rest of us are white). I never even think about it and if we are out and I introduce her as my sister, we sometimes get some strange looks. It actually usually takes me a few minutes when that happens to realize why people are surprised. It doesn't offend me though. While adoption is certainly not rare, I wouldn't really call it a societal norm either. If I'm white and I reference my sister, I think it's pretty normal that someone would assume that she would be white too. Again, nobody seems to have a problem that my sister looks different then me, just a quick few seconds of readjusting their thoughts based on prior assumptions.

[louisa05]

[mention=18388]melon[/mention], if you want to sound like a local, it's "LANK-aster", NOT, "LAN-Caster"

Baltimore is trickier.. but if you don't want to sound like a baltimoron, listen to the newscasters on the tv. WJZ or WBAL.  Do NOT imitate Marty Bass. He's a Baltimoron from way back.

Mr. Four's Baltimore accent is so pronounced that sometimes I still don't know what he's saying....

 

I was born in LANK-aster, Ohio. For the latter half of my childhood, we lived in LAN-caster county in Nebraska. And I swear most midwesterners cannot say it the first way.

[Four is Enough]

19 hours ago, louisa05 said:

 

I was born in LANK-aster, Ohio. For the latter half of my childhood, we lived in LAN-caster county in Nebraska. And I swear most midwesterners cannot say it the first way.

You can always tell when someone from California is talking about Lancaster. They Call it LAN CAS ter

[Suz8710]

Lancaster, California is pronounced LAN CAS ter....

The other one that gets me is Reading. You can definitely tell where someone is from by how they pronounce it

[LurkerOverThePond]

Apparently I don't have a life because I was browsing through old Bontrager blog entries and found this: http://bontragersingers.blogspot.fi/2015/11/young-womens-retreat-2015-recap.html

Unless I'm seeing things, Josiah's Lauren was among the attendees of young women's retreat. You can see her in the first picture on the very far right. She's also in a number of other pics, goofing around and exercising in pants. 

Anyway, it's interesting how small the fundie world actually is.

[tabitha2]

Only families that can afford to send their daughters to Journey and their sons to ALERT And can travel to see each other constantly at weddings, Parties and retreats and Big Sandy. The wider fundie world of the have nots who struggle to feed ten kids on One chicken and 3 potatoes is much larger.

[lumpentheologie]

As a mixed-race person, I have definitely been asked "What are you?"  Never during my childhood in Alaska though, the first time it happened I had just moved to LA when I was 18 and some totally random guy at a gas station came up and asked me while I was putting gas in my car.  It turns out he was of Armenian descent and thought I was too. (I'm Hispanic on one side and of Irish-German descent on the other.) I've gotten that I look Italian, Middle Eastern, Greek -- now that I live in New York 90% of people assume that I'm Ashkenazi Jewish, so much so that I rarely even get asked anymore.

Most people have been nicer in their phrasing than "What are you?", but it still gets really old having to deal with your appearance as something that other people think they have a right to an explanation about. I tend to think curiosity is not a good reason to ask about someone's physical appearance. My genetic ancestry is really none of anyone's business and I think they have about as much right asking about it as they would to ask how old I am or how much I weigh. 

If you're already in a conversation about family background or where people grew up, that's different -- it's about experience and not appearance and I think that's an important distinction. But everyone better be asked about it, not just the person who looks "different." 

 

[singsingsing]

Does anyone remember where the info that Lauren's mother is/was pregnant with her ninth child originally came from? I just did a search, and I found myself making a post stating that she was due in late February or early March. But I've completely forgotten where I got that. It's driving me nuts. 

[SweetJuly]

@lumpentheologie Haha, I've had the "What are you?" questions and "You don't look German" comments more often than I can count. I fully agree with you that it's at the very least annoying, and at the worst it makes you feel like you somehow don't belong.

People generally used to think that I am Italian or Spanish, which I have decided to take as a compliment. Strangely enough, whenever I spend time in Polynesia (a place I love), both locals and tourists generally assume I am at least half-Polynesian. I am not sure where they get the idea from, but I find it very flattering

Now that I live in Brussels, people never ask in a plump way because everyone here seems to be mixed or from another place in one way or another, and the questions "where are you from?" and "what brought you here?" are usually the conversation starter whenever you meet someone new. It's the norm, and no longer makes me feel singled out. Cosmopolitan places are wonderful.

[lumpentheologie]

@SweetJuly I spend a lot of time in Germany (my fiancé is German and lives there), and since my last name is German it's the only place people ever pronounce it right, but I'm routinely asked if that is really my name. I'm so weirded out by that -- why would I give someone a made-up name? 

On the other hand my fiancé is descended from Croatian immigrants on one side and has a Slavic first name. He is constantly, constantly, constantly asked where he is from when people find out his name, despite having no accent and being culturally pretty much totally German.  I find this really rude, but he has just accepted it as a fact of life. 

I do think it's different if someone asks because they are also of an 'other' ethnicity and want to know if you're the same as them, vs someone asking because they're of the dominant ethnicity and feel like you should explain your reason for being different. Once my fiancé and I were in a burger bar in Berlin and when he gave his name the cook asked him in Russian if he was Russian. My fiancé was confused and didn't understand at all, but I used to live in Russia, so I answered (in Russian) that he's not Russian, he's German.  Then the confused cook looked at me said, 'Oh, you're Russian!' When I responded that I was in fact American but that I used to live in Russia and I still miss it sometimes, he was so charmed that he gave us free drinks with our burgers. 

[Jellybean]

I agree about the nature of the question when living in a cosmopolitan city (I live in London). It’s much less likely to be asked in a way that is ‘othering’ because there is too much variety for there to be a single ‘normal’ nationality, mother tongue, or ancestry. 

As someone with a visible disability (I use an electric wheelchair) I am often asked what is ‘wrong’ with me. I don’t mind talking about it and I understand that people are interested, but when it’s used as a conversation-starter, or when it comes from strangers who don’t need to know (not medical professionals, for example), I find it extremely othering. I know that’s not the same as skin colour, but it’s something that is used to make assumptions about me and people often feel they have the right to ask questions because I look different.

There is a difference between having conversations about background/ancestry/medical stuff with friends, or with relevant context, and being interrogated because I’m seen as ‘other’ - I know I’m disabled, but I can talk about other things. Starting a conversation by discussing what’s ‘wrong’ with me (the things you see as flaws) is not likely to lead to a long conversation. I try to be patient and give people the chance to recognise that they started badly, but if they don’t see that, I reserve the right to be rude. 

[GnomeCat]

Engaged! These courtships feel like they are getting shorter and shorter. I really wonder when this one started.

https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/josiah-duggar-is-engaged-to-lauren-swanson/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=FB

[hollywood]

Amazing. 

[VBOY9977]

1 minute ago, GnomeCat said:

Engaged! These courtships feel like they are getting shorter and shorter. I really wonder when this one started.

https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/josiah-duggar-is-engaged-to-lauren-swanson/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=FB

It started early January according to one of the speeches they made in Australia. Barely 2 Months 

[Screamapillar]

So per Lauren's quotes in that article, she was "shocked" when he asked to court in January because they were still "learning about each other" and now, a hot minute later, they're engaged. Sounds promising.

[SapphireSlytherin]

Just now, Screamapillar said:

Sounds promising.

And, of course, it will last forever because no divorce allowed. Poor kid.

[singsingsing]

Hey, if you only court for two seconds before getting engaged, there's way less of a chance that she's going to break it off... 

[VelociRapture]

Anyone actually shocked or surprised? No? Good.

I’m betting they had a fairly substantial “getting to know you” period. I also have a feeling their engagement will be a bit over the typical three months. Still, this will be one of the shortest official Duggar relationships thus far. Only one that comes close is probably Jinger’s official courtship and engagement periods, which topped out at just about 5 months. 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

Carry on here 

 

[lumpentheologie]

2 minutes ago, Screamapillar said:

So per Lauren's quotes in that article, she was "shocked" when he asked to court in January because they were still "learning about each other" and now, a hot minute later, they're engaged. Sounds promising.

I agree that it's not a great start, but these fundies are always finding themselves 'shocked' about totally predictable things -- like getting proposed to when they're already courting, or learning they're pregnant when they're having unprotected sex.  

I kind of think their limited education and vocabulary doesn't really allow them to distinguish between 'shocked' and something less strong like 'surprised'.