The Snowflake Chronicles

How Many Ways Can YOU Pronounce Banana?

6 Masa’il 163 B.E. – December 17, 2006

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Pronunciations depend on, not only, what country a person is from, but what part of America one is from. Different parts of the country pronounce words differently, not to mention the difference in slang and references to food.

For instance, a chicken fried steak and a country-fried steak is the same thing. They are both beef and not chicken, they are both breaded and deep fried. True every cook has a different receipt for chicken fried or country-fried steak, some use a beer batter and other don’t. Some people use hotter spices and others don’t, but we’re still talking about a chicken fried or country-fried steak. The same thing goes for bananas, it doesn’t matter how you pronounce the item, you still peel the fruit (banana is a fruit isn’t it) and eat it or you can deep fry or mash it up and put it in bread, but no matter you still have to peel it before eating the thing. At least I don’t think you’re supposed to eat it without peeling it first, of course, that’s something I’ve never tried. In fact, I’ve never tried peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

Human’s make such big deals over words. They argue not only over pronunciations, but also over which words to use as holiday greetings. It doesn’t matter to me whether how banana is pronounced or whether I’m greeted by Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas or Bah Hum Bug. In stead of arguing over our differences we need to celebrate our similarities.

Genetically we are all the same species. There is diversity in language, there is diversity in religion, there is diversity in color, there is diversity in gender (via la difference), there is diversity in thought, there is diversity in sexual orientation, there is diversity in … well you name it and there is diversity. However, we are still the same species. No matter how many difference we find, there are just as many or even more similarities.

Still we argue, fight and kill each other over the difference. Diversity isn’t something to fear. The flowers in a garden aren’t all the same color, they have different colors, different arrangement of pedals, neither of which they fight over. However, humanity seems to think that it is the differences that are important and not the similarities. Go figure.