As Biden explained it on C- SPAN a couple of years ago: It’s my grandmother Biden’s maiden name.

It also sounds like some kind of miniature bird, or maybe a doo-wop backup singer. What the hell is that, even? It’s a little feminine, obviously. But now the ticket is weighed down by a second, probably worse middle name: Robinette. By now, we’re all aware that Obama is graced with the, er, politically uncooperative middle name of Hussein. One area in which Biden definitely doesn’t help, though: middle names. It’s widely acknowledged that Barack Obama chose Joe Biden as his running mate to balance out the ticket in his areas of weakness - national security, for example, or appeal to the female, blue collar, or smart-aleck voting blocks. A little bit of web-searching led me to this Intelligencer (New York Magazine) article by Dan Amira, ' Joe Biden’s Middle Name Is Robinette' (8/26/08):

That struck me as diminutive and feminine, so I wondered about it. While doing due diligence on the above topic, I came upon Joe Biden's interesting middle name: Robinette. And it has three different interpretations in topolects!!!! WARNING: not for Sinitic homophonia amateursĪctually the two 拜登s are different. Key: báiděng 白等 ('wait in vain') is pronounced as Bàidēng拜登 ('Biden') in Henan topolect.įor those who are interested in advanced studies on Sinitic homophonia, a connoisseur of the subject writes as follows ): Question: Who is this friend most likely? A friend advised him to go to bed early and said, 'Bi ('don't') den ('wait'), even if you wait it'll still be Biden.' Trump has been anxiously waiting for news. Wèn: Zhè wèi péngyǒu zuì kěnéng shì shénme rén? Here's one from a linguistically oriented website called Xiéyīn gěng yánjiū suǒ 谐音梗*研究所 (Institute for Research on Homophonia Memes) on 11/5/20 at 08:32:Ĭhuānpǔ yīzhí zài jiāojí de děng xiāoxī, yī wèi péngyǒu quàn tā zǎodiǎn shuì, shuō: “Bài dēng la, děng yěshì Bàidēng.” People aren't just laughing at the videos, they're making jokes about the way Henanese talk. What a combination of local customs with religion!Īs for the second piece, it will work perfectly well if 'Zhǔ 主“ ('Lord') is replaced by 'Dǎng 党“ ('Party'). So it becomes a scene of wedding in progressing to heaven. The girl in red with a piece of cloth over her head is obviously a bride. Just think of saints who resurrect from tombs riding in sedan chairs carried by angels and flying to heaven in throngs! It makes me laugh so hard.

Here are two videos of women dancing and singing Christian songs in Yùjù 豫剧 ('Henan opera') that are circulating on the Chinese internet to the accompaniment of much merriment: first (for Easter, eulogizing the scene of the Resurrection of Jesus folkish), second (in praise of Jesus, with an industrial, commercial, official flavor).Ĭomment by a Chinese friend on the first song-and-dance: It has become a meme in China to make fun of people speaking with a Henan accent.

Joe biden middle name origin