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Comment by vidarh | Hacker News Reader

My black African ex once chewed out an American who not only called her African American but "corrected her" after she referred to herself as black, in a very clear British received pronunciation accent that has no hint of American to it, by insisting it was "African American".

And not while in the US either - but in the UK.

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This reminds me of a YouTube video from a black female from the US, where she argued that Montenegro sounds too racist. Yet, that name existed way before the US was conceived.

Wow. I've been corrected on my English (as an Englishman, living in England, speaking English) by an American before. But to be corrected of your race is something else

Did they complain you didn't speak with the correct English accent too?

I always find it hilarious when Americans talk about English accents and seem to think there are one - or maybe two if they've seen any period movies or Mary Poppins -, given there are several clearly distinct English accents in use in my London borough alone (ignoring accents with immigrant origin, which would add many more)

it's either posh or cockney, right?

They wanted to find Leicester Square in London

- Hey can you tell me where "lie-sester" square is?

- Oh you mean "lester" square, yeah walk up that...

- No I'm pretty sure it's "lie-sester"

- Ok well I've never heard of that square, good luck!

I support them in their fight against how you guys pronounce certain things compared to how it is spelled. I'm not from the US though but Worcestershire sauce....come on.

That's fine, but that means I reserve the right to go to Detroit and insist it's pronounced "de-twa" and tell the locals they say it wrong because it has a french origin :)

Do b/Black people in the UK care about capitalization?

I'm not black, so I can't speak for black people in the UK.

But in terms of English language rather than their preference, I think you use a compound term, such as Black British, it's probably more correct to capitalize, at least if you intend it to be a compound rather than intend black as "just" an adjective that happens to be used to qualify British rather than referring to a specific group. "Black" by itself would not generally be capitalized unless at the start of a sentence any more than "white" would. And this seems to be generally reflected in how I see the term used in the UK.

Thank you for the thorough explanation.

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