title: Cantonese

text: Although Cantonese shares much vocabulary with Mandarin, the two Sinitic languages are mutually unintelligible, largely because of phonological differences, but also due to differences in grammar and vocabulary. Sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. A notable difference between Cantonese and Mandarin is how the spoken word is written; both can be recorded verbatim, but very few Cantonese speakers are knowledgeable in the full Cantonese written vocabulary, so a non-verbatim formalized written form is adopted, which is more akin to the Mandarin written form or Standard Chinese. However, it is only non-verbatim with respect to vernacular Cantonese as it is possible to read Standard Chinese text verbatim with formal Cantonese. This results in the situation in which a Cantonese and a Mandarin text may look similar but are pronounced differently. Conversely, written (vernacular) Cantonese is mostly used in informal settings such as on social media and comic books.


title: Cantonese

text: In English, the term "Cantonese" can be ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the variety native to the city of Canton, which is the traditional English name of Guangzhou. This narrow sense may be specified as "Canton language" or "Guangzhou language".


title: Cantonese

text: However, "Cantonese" may also refer to the primary branch of Chinese that contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang; this broader usage may be specified as "Yue speech" (). In this article, "Cantonese" is used for Cantonese proper.


title: Cantonese

text: Historically, speakers called this variety "Canton speech" (), although this term is now seldom used outside mainland China. In Guangdong and Guangxi, people also call it "provincial capital speech" () or "plain speech" (). Also, academically called "Canton prefecture speech" ().


title: Cantonese

text: In Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, the language is referred to as "Guangdong speech" or "Canton Province Speech" () or simply as "Chinese" ().


title: Cantonese

text: During the Southern Song period, Guangzhou became the cultural center of the region. Cantonese emerged as the prestige variety of Yue Chinese when the port city of Guangzhou on the Pearl River Delta became the largest port in China, with a trade network stretching as far as Arabia. Cantonese was also used in the popular "Yuè'ōu", "Mùyú" and "Nányīn" folksong genres, as well as Cantonese opera. Additionally, a distinct classical literature was developed in Cantonese, with Middle Chinese texts sounding more similar to modern Cantonese than other present-day Chinese varieties, including Mandarin.


title: Cantonese

text: As Guangzhou became China's key commercial center for foreign trade and exchange in the 1700s, Cantonese became the variety of Chinese interacting most with the Western World. Around this period and continuing into the 1900s, the ancestors of most of the population of Hong Kong and Macau arrived from Guangzhou and surrounding areas after they were ceded to Britain and Portugal, respectively.


title: Cantonese

text: In Mainland China, Standard Mandarin has been heavily promoted as the medium of instruction in schools and as the official language, especially after the communist takeover in 1949. Meanwhile, Cantonese has remained the official variety of Chinese in Hong Kong and Macau, both during and after the colonial period.


title: Cantonese

text: The official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English, as defined in the Hong Kong Basic Law. The Chinese language has many different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. Given the traditional predominance of Cantonese within Hong Kong, it is the "de facto" official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Hong Kong Government and all courts and tribunals. It is also used as the medium of instruction in schools, alongside English.


title: Cantonese

text: A similar situation also exists in neighboring Macau, where Chinese is an official language alongside Portuguese. As in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken variety of Chinese used in everyday life and is thus the official form of Chinese used in the government. The Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is mutually intelligible with the Cantonese spoken in the mainland city of Guangzhou, although there exist some minor differences in accent, pronunciation, and vocabulary.


title: Cantonese

text: Cantonese first developed around the port city of Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta region of southeastern China. Due to the city's long standing role as an important cultural center, Cantonese emerged as the prestige dialect of the Yue varieties of Chinese in the Southern Song dynasty and its usage spread around most of what is now the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi.


title: Cantonese

text: Despite the cession of Macau to Portugal in 1557 and Hong Kong to Britain in 1842, the ethnic Chinese population of the two territories largely originated from the 19th and 20th century immigration from Guangzhou and surrounding areas, making Cantonese the predominant Chinese language in the territories. On the mainland, Cantonese continued to serve as the "lingua franca" of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces even after Mandarin was made the official language of the government by the Qing dynasty in the early 1900s. Cantonese remained a dominant and influential language in southeastern China until the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and its promotion of Standard Mandarin Chinese as the sole official language of the nation throughout the last half of the 20th century, although its influence still remains strong within the region.


title: Cantonese

text: While the Chinese government encourages the use of Standard Mandarin rather than local varieties of Chinese in broadcasts, Cantonese enjoys a relatively higher standing than other Chinese languages, with its own media and usage in public transportation in Guangdong province. Furthermore, it is also a medium of instruction in select academic curricula, including some university elective courses and Chinese as a foreign language programs. The permitted usage of Cantonese in mainland China is largely a countermeasure against Hong Kong's influence, as the autonomous territory has the right to freedom of the press and speech and its Cantonese-language media have a substantial exposure and following in Guangdong.


title: Cantonese

text: Nevertheless, the place of local Cantonese language and culture remains contentious, as with other non-Mandarin Chinese languages. A 2010 proposal to switch some programming on Guangzhou television from Cantonese to Mandarin was abandoned following massive public protests, the largest since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. As a major economic center of China, there have been recent concerns that the use of Cantonese in Guangzhou is diminishing in favour of Mandarin, both through the continual influx of Mandarin-speaking migrants from impoverished areas and strict government policies. As a result, Cantonese is being given a more important status by the natives than ever before as a common identity of the local people.


title: Cantonese

text: Despite some decline in Cantonese usage in Guangdong province, its survival is still doing better than other Chinese dialects due to the local cultural prestige, pride, popularity, and especially with the wide availability and popularity of Cantonese entertainment and media from both Guangzhou and especially from Hong Kong, which is maintaining the encouragements of the local Cantonese speakers to want to continue to preserve their culture and language versus other Chinese dialectal speaking regions are much more limited with their encouragements to maintain their local dialects as they have very limited to no media or entertainment outlets to cater to their local dialects. Back in the 1980s-90s, migrants from many parts of China settling in Guangzhou or anywhere in Guangdong showed more interest to learning Cantonese and wanting to integrate into the local cultural environment seeing it as trendy and rich due to the popularity of Hong Kong entertainment, but since the 2000s, the newer migrant settlers increasingly showed less interest in the local culture and very often strictly demanding the official obligations of the local residents to command speaking Mandarin as the official Chinese language to them. Though as of the 2020s, some additional renewed efforts to preserve the Cantonese language and culture have been introduced with some schools in Guangzhou now starting to teach some limited Cantonese language classes, activities related to Cantonese language and culture and as well as hosting Cantonese appreciation cultural events. Many local Cantonese speaking families in Guangdong province overall in general including in Guangzhou have started placing more stronger emphasis to encourage the use of Cantonese with their children to preserve the local language and culture. In a 2018 report study by Shan Yunming and Li Sheng, the report showed that 90% of people living in Guangzhou are bilingual in both Cantonese and Mandarin, though fluency will vary depending on if they are locally born to the city and the surrounding Guangdong province or migrants from other provinces, which shows how much importance the Cantonese language still has in the city despite the strict policy rules from the government to be using Mandarin as the country's official language.


title: Cantonese

text: Cantonese has historically served as a "lingua franca" among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, who speak a variety of other forms of Chinese including Hokkien, Teochew, and Hakka. Additionally, Cantonese media and popular culture from Hong Kong is popular throughout the region.


title: Cantonese

text: In Vietnam, Cantonese is the dominant language of the main ethnic Chinese community, usually referred to as "Hoa", which numbers about one million people and constitutes one of the largest minority groups in the country. Over half of the ethnic Chinese population in Vietnam speaks Cantonese as a native language and the variety also serves as a lingua franca between the different Chinese dialect groups. Many speakers reflect their exposure to Vietnamese with a Vietnamese accent or a tendency to code-switch between Cantonese and Vietnamese.


title: Cantonese

text: In Malaysia, Cantonese is widely spoken amongst the Malaysian Chinese community in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur and the surrounding areas in the Klang Valley (Petaling Jaya, Ampang, Cheras, Selayang, Sungai Buloh, Puchong, Shah Alam, Kajang, Bangi, and Subang Jaya). The language is also widely spoken as well in the town of Sekinchan in the district of


title: Cantonese

text: Sabak Bernam located in the northern part of Selangor state and also in the state of Perak, especially in the state capital city of Ipoh and its surrounding towns of Gopeng, Batu Gajah, and Kampar of the Kinta Valley region plus the towns of Tapah and Bidor in the southern part of the Perak state, and also widely spoken in the eastern Sabahan town of Sandakan as well as the towns of Kuantan, Raub, Bentong, and Mentakab in Pahang state, and they are also found in other areas such as Sarikei, Sarawak, and Mersing, Johor.


title: Cantonese

text: Although Hokkien is the most natively spoken variety of Chinese and Mandarin is the medium of education at Chinese-language schools, Cantonese is largely influential in the local Chinese media and is used in commerce by Chinese Malaysians.


title: Cantonese

text: Due to the popularity of Hong Kong popular culture, especially through drama series and popular music, Cantonese is widely understood by the Chinese in all parts of Malaysia, even though a large proportion of the Chinese Malaysian population is non-Cantonese. Television networks in Malaysia regularly broadcast Hong Kong television programmes in their original Cantonese audio and soundtrack. Cantonese radio is also available in the nation and Cantonese is prevalent in locally produced Chinese television.


title: Cantonese

text: Cantonese spoken in Malaysia and Singapore often exhibits influences from Malay and other Chinese varieties spoken in the country, such as Hokkien and Teochew.


title: Cantonese

text: In Singapore, Mandarin is the official variety of the Chinese language used by the government, which has a Speak Mandarin Campaign (SMC) seeking to actively promote the use of Mandarin at the expense of other Chinese varieties. Cantonese is spoken by a little over 15% of Chinese households in Singapore. Despite the government's active promotion of SMC, the Cantonese-speaking Chinese community has been relatively successful in preserving its language from Mandarin compared to other dialect groups.


title: Cantonese

text: Notably, all nationally produced non-Mandarin Chinese TV and radio programs were stopped after 1979. The prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, then, also stopped giving speeches in Hokkien to prevent giving conflicting signals to the people. Hong Kong (Cantonese) and Taiwanese dramas are unavailable in their untranslated form on free-to-air television, though drama series in non-Chinese languages are available in their original languages. Cantonese drama series on terrestrial TV channels are instead dubbed in Mandarin and broadcast without the original Cantonese audio and soundtrack. However, originals may be available through other sources such as cable television and online videos.


title: Cantonese

text: Furthermore, an offshoot of SMC is the translation to Hanyu Pinyin of certain terms which originated from southern Chinese varieties. For instance, dim sum is often known as "diǎn xīn" in Singapore's English-language media, though this is largely a matter of style, and most Singaporeans will still refer to it as "dim sum" when speaking English.


title: Cantonese

text: Nevertheless, since the government restriction on media in non-Mandarin varieties was relaxed in the mid-1990s and 2000s, the presence of Cantonese in Singapore has grown substantially. Forms of popular culture from Hong Kong, such as television series, cinema and pop music have become popular in Singaporean society, and non-dubbed original versions of the media became widely available. Consequently, there is a growing number of non-Cantonese Chinese Singaporeans being able to understand or speak Cantonese to some varying extent, with a number of educational institutes offering Cantonese as an elective language course.


title: Cantonese

text: Cantonese is widely used as the inter-communal language among Chinese Cambodians, especially in Phnom Penh and other urban areas. While Teochew speakers form the majority of the Chinese population in Cambodia, Cantonese is often used as a vernacular in commerce and with other Chinese variant groups in the nation. Chinese-language schools in Cambodia are conducted in both Cantonese and Mandarin, but schools may be conducted exclusively in one Chinese variant or the other.


title: Cantonese

text: While Thailand is home to the largest overseas Chinese community in the world, the vast majority of ethnic Chinese in the country speak Thai exclusively. Among Chinese-speaking Thai households, Cantonese is the fourth most-spoken variety of Chinese after Teochew, Hakka and Hainanese. Nevertheless, within the Thai Chinese commercial sector, it serves as a common language alongside Teochew or Thai. Chinese-language schools in Thailand have also traditionally been conducted in Cantonese. Furthermore, Cantonese serves as the lingua franca with other Chinese communities in the region.


title: Cantonese

text: In Indonesia, Cantonese is locally known as "Konghu" and is one of the variants spoken by the Chinese Indonesian community, with speakers largely concentrated in major cities such as Jakarta, Surabaya and Batam. However, it has a relatively minor presence compared to other Southeast Asian nations, being the fourth most spoken Chinese variety after Hokkien, Hakka and Teochew.


title: Cantonese

text: Over a period of 150 years, Guangdong has been the place-of-origin for most Chinese emigrants to Western nations; one coastal county, Taishan (or Tóisàn, where the Sìyì or "sei yap" variety of Yue is spoken), alone may be the origin of the vast majority of Chinese immigrants to the U.S. before 1965. As a result, Yue languages such as Cantonese and the closely related variety of Taishanese have been the major Chinese varieties traditionally spoken in the United States.


title: Cantonese

text: The Zhongshan variant of Cantonese, which originated from the western Pearl River Delta, is spoken by many Chinese immigrants in Hawaii, and some in San Francisco and the Sacramento River Delta (see Locke, California). It is a Yuehai variety much like Guangzhou Cantonese but has "flatter" tones. Chinese is the second most widely spoken non-English language in the United States when both Cantonese and Mandarin are combined, behind Spanish. Many institutes of higher education have traditionally had Chinese programs based on Cantonese, with some continuing to offer these programs despite the rise of Mandarin. The most popular romanization for learning Cantonese in the United States is Yale Romanization.


title: Cantonese

text: The majority of Chinese emigrants have traditionally originated from Guangdong and Guangxi, as well as Hong Kong and Macau (beginning in the latter half of the 20th century and before the Handover) and Southeast Asia, with Cantonese as their native language. However, more recent immigrants are arriving from the rest of mainland China and Taiwan and most often speak Standard Mandarin (Putonghua) as their native language, although some may also speak their native local variety, such as Shanghainese, Hokkien, Fuzhounese, Hakka, etc. As a result, Mandarin is becoming more common among the Chinese American community.


title: Cantonese

text: The increase of Mandarin-speaking communities has resulted in the rise of separate neighborhoods or enclaves segregated by the primary Chinese variety spoken. Socioeconomic statuses are also a factor. For example, in New York City, Cantonese still predominates in the city's older, traditional western portion of Chinatown in Manhattan and in Brooklyn's small new Chinatowns in Bensonhurst and Homecrest. The newly emerged Little Fuzhou eastern portion of Manhattan's Chinatown and Brooklyn's main large Chinatown in and around Sunset Park are mostly populated by Fuzhounese speakers, who often speak Mandarin as well. The Cantonese and Fuzhounese enclaves in New York City are more working class. However, due to the rapid gentrification of Manhattan's Chinatown and with NYC's Cantonese and Fuzhou populations now increasingly shifting to other Chinese enclaves in the Outer Boroughs of NYC, such as Brooklyn and Queens, but mainly in Brooklyn's newer Chinatowns, the Cantonese speaking population in NYC is now increasingly concentrated in Bensonhurst's Little Hong Kong/Guangdong and Homecrest's Little Hong Kong/Guangdong. The Fuzhou population of NYC is becoming increasingly concentrated in Brooklyn's Sunset Park, also known as Little Fuzhou, which is causing the city's growing Cantonese and Fuzhou enclaves to become increasingly distanced and isolated from both each other and other Chinese enclaves in Queens. Flushing's Chinatown, which is now the largest Chinatown in the city, and Elmhurst's smaller Chinatown in Queens are very diverse, with large numbers of Mandarin speakers from different regions of China and Taiwan. The Chinatowns of Queens comprise the primary cultural center for New York City's Chinese population and are more middle class.


title: Cantonese

text: In Northern California, especially the San Francisco Bay Area, Cantonese has historically and continues to dominate in the Chinatowns of San Francisco and Oakland, as well as the surrounding suburbs and metropolitan area, although since the late 2000s a concentration of Mandarin speakers has formed in Silicon Valley. In contrast, Southern California hosts a much larger Mandarin-speaking population, with Cantonese found in more historical Chinese communities such as that of Chinatown, Los Angeles, and older Chinese ethnoburbs such as San Gabriel, Rosemead, and Temple City. Mandarin predominates in much of the emergent Chinese American enclaves in eastern Los Angeles County and other areas of the metropolitan region.


title: Cantonese

text: While a number of more-established Taiwanese immigrants have learned Cantonese to foster relations with the traditional Cantonese-speaking Chinese American population, more recent arrivals and the larger number of mainland Chinese immigrants have largely continued to use Mandarin as the exclusive variety of Chinese. This has led to a linguistic discrimination that has also contributed to social conflicts between the two sides, with a growing number of Chinese Americans (including American-born Chinese) of Cantonese background defending the historic Chinese-American culture against the impacts of increasing Mandarin-speaking new arrivals.


title: Cantonese

text: Cantonese is the most common Chinese variety spoken among Chinese Canadians. According to the Canada 2016 Census, there were 565,275 Canadian residents who reported Cantonese as their native language. Among the self-reported Cantonese speakers, 44% were born in Hong Kong, 27% were born in Guangdong Province in China, and 18% were Canadian-born. Cantonese-speakers can be found in every city with a Chinese community. The majority of Cantonese-speakers in Canada live in the Greater Toronto Area and Metro Vancouver. There are sufficient Cantonese-speakers in Canada that there exist locally-produced Cantonese TV and radio programming, such as Fairchild TV.


title: Cantonese

text: As in the United States, the Chinese Canadian community traces its roots to early immigrants from Guangdong during the latter half of the 19th century. Later Chinese immigrants came from Hong Kong in two waves, first in the late 1960s to mid 1970s, and again in the 1980s to late 1990s on fears arising from the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests and impending handover to the People's Republic of China. Chinese-speaking immigrants from conflict zones in Southeast Asia, especially Vietnam, arrived as well, beginning in the mid-1970s and were also largely Cantonese-speaking.


title: Cantonese

text: The overwhelming majority of Chinese speakers in the United Kingdom use Cantonese, with about 300,000 British people claiming it as their first language. This is largely due to the presence of British Hong Kongers and the fact that many British Chinese also have origins in the former British colonies in Southeast Asia of Singapore and Malaysia.


title: Cantonese

text: Among the Chinese community in France, Cantonese is spoken by immigrants who fled the former French Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) following the conflicts and communist takeovers in the region during the 1970s. While a slight majority of ethnic Chinese from Indochina speak Teochew at home, knowledge of Cantonese is prevalent due to its historic prestige status in the region and is used for commercial and community purposes between the different Chinese variety groups. As in the United States, there is a divide between Cantonese-speakers and those speaking other mainland Chinese varieties.


title: Cantonese

text: Cantonese is spoken by ethnic Chinese in Portugal who originate from Macau, the most established Chinese community in the nation with a presence dating back to the 16th century and Portuguese colonialism. Since the late-20th century, however, Mandarin- and Wu-speaking migrants from mainland China have outnumbered those from Macau, although Cantonese is still retained among mainstream Chinese community associations.


title: Cantonese

text: Cantonese has traditionally been the dominant Chinese language of the Chinese Australian community since the first ethnic Chinese settlers arrived in the 1850s. It maintained this status until the mid-2000s, when a heavy increase in immigration from Mandarin-speakers largely from Mainland China led to Mandarin surpassing Cantonese as the dominant Chinese dialect spoken. Cantonese is the third most-spoken language in Australia. In the 2011 census, the Australian Bureau of Statistics listed 336,410 and 263,673 speakers of Mandarin and Cantonese, respectively. By 2016, those numbers became 596,711 and 280,943.


title: Cantonese

text: Spoken Chinese has numerous regional and local varieties, many of which are mutually unintelligible. Most of these are rare outside their native areas, though they may be spoken outside of China. Many varieties also have Literary and colloquial readings of Chinese characters for newer standard reading sounds. Since a 1909 Qing dynasty decree, China has promoted Mandarin for use in education, the media, and official communications. The proclamation of Mandarin as the official national language, however, was not fully accepted by the Cantonese authorities in the early 20th century, who argued for the "regional uniqueness" of their own local language and commercial importance of the region. Unlike other non-Mandarin Chinese varieties, Cantonese persists in a few state television and radio broadcasts today.


title: Cantonese

text: Nevertheless, there have been recent attempts to minimize the use of Cantonese in China. The most notable has been the 2010 proposal that Guangzhou Television increase its broadcast in Mandarin at the expense of Cantonese programs. This however led to protests in Guangzhou, which eventually dissuaded authorities from going forward with the proposal. Additionally, there are reports of students being punished for speaking other Chinese languages at school, resulting in a reluctance of younger children to communicate in their native languages, including Cantonese. Such actions have further provoked Cantonese speakers to cherish their linguistic identity in contrast to migrants who have generally arrived from poorer areas of China and largely speak Mandarin or other Chinese languages.


title: Cantonese

text: Due to the linguistic history of Hong Kong and Macau, and the use of Cantonese in many established overseas Chinese communities, the use of Cantonese is quite widespread compared to the presence of its speakers residing in China. Cantonese is the predominant Chinese variety spoken in Hong Kong and Macau. In these areas, public discourse takes place almost exclusively in Cantonese, making it the only variety of Chinese other than Mandarin to be used as an official language in the world. Because of their dominance in Chinese diaspora overseas, standard Cantonese and its dialect Taishanese are among the most common Chinese languages that one may encounter in the West.


title: Cantonese

text: Increasingly since the 1997 Handover, Cantonese has been used as a symbol of local identity in Hong Kong, largely through the development of democracy in the territory and desinicization practices to emphasise a separate Hong Kong identity.


title: Cantonese

text: A similar identity issue exists in the United States, where conflicts have arisen among Chinese-speakers due to a large recent influx of Mandarin-speakers. While older Taiwanese immigrants have learned Cantonese to foster integration within the traditional Chinese American populations, more recent arrivals from the Mainland continue to use Mandarin exclusively. This has contributed to a segregation of communities based on linguistic cleavage. In particular, some Chinese Americans (including American-born Chinese) of Cantonese background emphasise their non-Mainland origins (e.g. Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, etc.) to assert their identity in the face of new waves of immigration.


title: Cantonese

text: Along with Mandarin and Hokkien, Cantonese has its own popular music, Cantopop, which is the predominant genre in Hong Kong. Many artists from the Mainland and Taiwan have learned Cantonese to break into the market. Popular native Mandarin-speaking singers, including Faye Wong, Eric Moo, and singers from Taiwan, have been trained in Cantonese to add "Hong Kong-ness" to their performances.


title: Cantonese

text: Cantonese films date to the early days of Chinese cinema, and the first Cantonese talkie, "White Gold Dragon" (), was made in 1932 by the Tianyi Film Company. Despite a ban on Cantonese films by the Nanjing authority in the 1930s, Cantonese film production continued in Hong Kong which was then under British colonial rule. From the mid-1970s to the 1990s, Cantonese films made in Hong Kong were very popular in the Chinese speaking world.


title: Cantonese

text: The "de facto" standard pronunciation of Cantonese is that of Canton (Guangzhou). Hong Kong Cantonese has some minor variations in phonology, but is largely identical to standard Guangzhou Cantonese.


title: Cantonese

text: In Hong Kong and Macau, certain phoneme pairs have merged. Although termed as "lazy sound" () and considered substandard to Guangzhou pronunciation, the phenomenon has been widespread in the territories since the early 20th century. The most notable difference between Hong Kong and Guangzhou pronunciation is the substitution of the liquid nasal () for the nasal initial () in many words. An example of this is manifested in the word for you (), pronounced as in Guangzhou and as in Hong Kong.


title: Cantonese

text: Another key feature of Hong Kong Cantonese is the merging of the two syllabic nasals and . This can be exemplified in the elimination of the contrast of sounds between (Ng, a surname) (/ in Guangzhou pronunciation) and (not) (/ in Guangzhou pronunciation). In Hong Kong, both words are pronounced as the latter.


title: Cantonese

text: Lastly, the initials and can be merged into and when followed by . An example is in the word for country (), pronounced in standard Guangzhou as "gwok" but as "gok" with the merge. Unlike the above two differences, this merge is found alongside the standard pronunciation in Hong Kong rather than being replaced. Educated speakers often stick to the standard pronunciation but can exemplify the merged pronunciation in casual speech. In contrast, less educated speakers pronounce the merge more frequently.


title: Cantonese

text: Cantonese vowels tend to be traced further back to Middle Chinese than their Mandarin analogues, such as M. /aɪ/ vs. C. /ɔːi/; M. /i/ vs. C. /ɐi/; M. /ɤ/ vs. C. /ɔː/; M. /ɑʊ/ vs. C. /ou/ etc. For consonants, some differences include M. /ɕ, tɕ, tɕʰ/ vs. C. /h, k, kʰ/; M. /ʐ/ vs. C. /j/; and a greater syllable coda diversity in Cantonese (such as syllables ending in "-t", "-p", or "-k").


title: Cantonese

text: Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered as "checked tones" and treated separately by diachronic convention, identifying Cantonese with nine tones (). However, these are seldom counted as phonemic tones in modern linguistics, which prefer to analyse them as conditioned by the following consonant.


title: Cantonese

text: As Cantonese is used primarily in Hong Kong, Macau, and other overseas Chinese communities, it is usually written with traditional Chinese characters. However, it includes extra characters as well as characters with different meanings from written vernacular Chinese due to the presence of words that either do not exist in standard Chinese or correspond with spoken Cantonese. This system of written Cantonese is often found in colloquial contexts such as entertainment magazines and social media, as well as on advertisements.


title: Cantonese

text: In contrast, standard written Chinese continues to be used in formal literature, professional and government documents, television and movie subtitles, and news media. Nevertheless, colloquial characters may be present in formal written communications such as legal testimonies and newspapers when an individual is being quoted, rather than paraphrasing spoken Cantonese into standard written Chinese.


title: Cantonese

text: Cantonese romanization systems are based on the accents of Canton and Hong Kong, and have helped define the concept of Standard Cantonese. The major systems are: Jyutping, Yale, the Chinese government's Guangdong Romanization, and Meyer–Wempe. While they do not differ greatly, Jyutping and Yale are the two most used and taught systems today in the West. Additionally, Hong Kong linguist Sidney Lau modified the Yale system for his popular Cantonese-as-a-second-language course and is still in use today.


title: Cantonese

text: While the governments of Hong Kong and Macau utilize a romanization system for proper names and geographic locations, they are inconsistent in the transcription of some sounds and the systems are not taught in schools. Furthermore, the system of Macau differs slightly from Hong Kong's in that the spellings are influenced by the Portuguese language due to colonial history. For example, while some words under Macau's romanization system are the same as Hong Kong's (e.g., the surnames "Lam" 林, "Chan" 陳), instances of the letter under Hong Kong's romanization system are often replaced by under the Macau romanization system (e.g., "Chau" vs "Chao" 周, "Leung" vs "Leong" 梁). Both the spellings of Hong Kong and Macau Cantonese romanization systems do not look similar to the mainland China's pinyin system. Generally, plain stops are written with voiced consonants (/p/, /t/, /ts/, and /k/ as "b", "d", "z/j", and "g" respectively), and aspirated stops with unvoiced ones, as in pinyin.


title: Cantonese

text: Systematic efforts to develop an alphabetic representation of Cantonese began with the arrival of Protestant missionaries in China early in the nineteenth century. Romanization was considered both a tool to help new missionaries learn the variety more easily and a quick route for the unlettered to achieve gospel literacy. Earlier Catholic missionaries, mostly Portuguese, had developed romanization schemes for the pronunciation current in the court and capital city of China but made few efforts to romanize other varieties.


title: Cantonese

text: Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary in China published a "Vocabulary of the Canton Dialect" (1828) with a rather unsystematic romanized pronunciation. Elijah Coleman Bridgman and Samuel Wells Williams in their "Chinese Chrestomathy in the Canton Dialect" (1841) were the progenitors of a long-lived lineage of related romanizations with minor variations embodied in the works of James Dyer Ball, Ernst Johann Eitel, and Immanuel Gottlieb Genähr (1910). Bridgman and Williams based their system on the phonetic alphabet and diacritics proposed by Sir William Jones for South Asian languages.


title: Cantonese

text: Their romanization system embodied the phonological system in a local dialect rhyme dictionary, the "Fenyun cuoyao", which was widely used and easily available at the time and is still available today. Samuel Wells Willams' "Tonic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Canton Dialect" ("Yinghua fenyun cuoyao" 1856), is an alphabetic rearrangement, translation and annotation of the "Fenyun". To adapt the system to the needs of users at a time when there were only local variants and no standard—although the speech of the western suburbs, "Xiguan", of Guangzhou was the prestige variety at the time—Williams suggested that users learn and follow their teacher's pronunciation of his chart of Cantonese syllables. It was apparently Bridgman's innovation to mark the tones with an open circle (upper register tones) or an underlined open circle (lower register tones) at the four corners of the romanized word in analogy with the traditional Chinese system of marking the tone of a character with a circle (lower left for "even", upper left for "rising", upper right for "going", and lower right for "entering" tones).


title: Cantonese

text: John Chalmers, in his "English and Cantonese pocket-dictionary" (1859) simplified the marking of tones using the acute accent to mark "rising" tones and the grave to mark "going" tones and no diacritic for "even" tones and marking upper register tones by italics (or underlining in handwritten work). "Entering" tones could be distinguished by their consonantal ending. Nicholas Belfeld Dennys used Chalmers romanization in his primer. This method of marking tones was adopted in the Yale romanization (with low register tones marked with an 'h'). A new romanization was developed in the first decade of the twentieth century which eliminated the diacritics on vowels by distinguishing vowel quality by spelling differences (e.g. a/aa, o/oh). Diacritics were used only for marking tones.


title: Cantonese

text: The name of Tipson is associated with this new romanization which still embodied the phonology of the Fenyun to some extent. It is the system used in Meyer-Wempe and Cowles' dictionaries and O'Melia's textbook and many other works in the first half of the twentieth century. It was the standard romanization until the Yale system supplanted it. The distinguished linguist Y. R. Chao developed a Cantonese adaptation of his Gwoyeu Romatzyh system. The Barnett-Chao romanization system was first used in Chao's "Cantonese Primer", published in 1947 by Harvard University Press (The "Cantonese Primer" was adapted for Mandarin teaching and published by Harvard University Press in 1948 as "Mandarin Primer"). The BC system was also used in textbooks published by the Hong Kong government.


title: Cantonese

text: An influential work on Cantonese, "A Chinese Syllabary Pronounced According to the Dialect of Canton," written by Wong Shik Ling, was published in 1941. He derived an IPA-based transcription system, the S. L. Wong system, used by many Chinese dictionaries later published in Hong Kong. Although Wong also derived a romanization scheme, also known as the S. L. Wong system, it is not widely used as his transcription scheme. This system was preceded by the Barnett–Chao system used by the Hong Government Language School.


title: Cantonese

text: The romanization advocated by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK) is called Jyutping. The phonetic values of some consonants are closer to the approximate equivalents in IPA than in other systems. Some effort has been undertaken to promote Jyutping, but the success of its proliferation within the region has yet to be examined.


title: Cantonese

text: Another popular scheme is Cantonese Pinyin, which is the only romanization system accepted by Hong Kong Education and Manpower Bureau and Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority. Books and studies for teachers and students in primary and secondary schools usually use this scheme. But there are teachers and students who use the transcription system of S.L. Wong.


title: Cantonese

text: Despite the efforts to standardize Cantonese romanization, those learning the language may feel frustrated that most native Cantonese speakers, regardless of their level of education, are unfamiliar with any romanization system. Because Cantonese is primarily a spoken language and does not carry its own writing system (written Cantonese, despite having some Chinese characters unique to it, primarily follows modern standard Chinese, which is closely tied to Mandarin), it is not taught in schools. As a result, locals do not learn any of these systems. In contrast with Mandarin-speaking areas of China, Cantonese romanization systems are excluded in the education systems of both Hong Kong and the Guangdong province. In practice, Hong Kong follows a loose, unnamed romanization scheme used by the Government of Hong Kong.


title: Cantonese

text: Differences between the three main standards are . Note that Jyutping and Cantonese Pinyin recognize certain sounds used in a few colloquial words (such as 掉, 舐, and 夾) but have not been officially recognized in other systems such as Yale.


title: Greg Oden

text: Gregory Wayne Oden Jr. (born January 22, 1988) is an American former professional basketball player. Oden, a 7'0" (2.13m) center, played college basketball at Ohio State University for one season, during which the team was the Big Ten Champion and the tournament runner-up in the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship.


title: Greg Oden

text: On June 28, 2007, Greg Oden was selected first overall in the 2007 NBA draft by the Portland Trail Blazers. He underwent microfracture surgery of the knee in September 2007, and missed the entire 2007–08 NBA season as a result. He recovered and made his NBA debut on opening night 2008. In March 2012, he was waived from the Trail Blazers after a long history of injuries. He signed with the Miami Heat in August 2013, more than three years after last appearing in an NBA game, and played with the team through the 2014 NBA playoffs.


title: Greg Oden

text: After playing in the Chinese Basketball Association during its 2015–16 season, Oden stated in October 2016 that he was done with basketball and would not be returning as a player. In July 2018, he played in The Basketball Tournament 2018. In May 2019, Oden was selected as the 7th overall pick in the 2019 Big3 Draft.


title: Greg Oden

text: Oden was born in Buffalo, New York, and moved with his family to Terre Haute, Indiana at the age of nine. He attended Sarah Scott Middle School in Terre Haute, where he first played interscholastic basketball. Oden then relocated with his mother and brother and attended Lawrence North High School in Indianapolis, Indiana which he led to three consecutive Indiana Class 4A basketball championships before graduating in 2006. He was named " Parade"'s High School Co-Player of the Year 2005 (along with Monta Ellis) and 2005 National Boys Basketball Player of the Year. He repeated as Gatorade National Boys Basketball Player of the Year in 2006. Oden was named the 2006 Indiana Mr. Basketball. He was also on the McDonald's All-American Team and played in the All-American game, and earned first-team " Parade" All-American honors for the second straight year.


title: Greg Oden

text: On June 29, 2005, Oden and Lawrence North teammate Mike Conley, Jr. announced that they would be attending Ohio State University starting with the 2006–07 season.


title: Greg Oden

text: Oden had surgery on his right wrist on June 16, 2006, in Indianapolis to repair a ligament injury that occurred late in his senior high school season. As a result, he sat on the Ohio State bench during the beginning of the 2006–07 season, during which the Buckeyes were ranked as high as #1 before losing to North Carolina. He made his college debut on December 2, 2006, against Valparaiso, coming off the bench. He finished the game with 14 points, 10 rebounds, and 5 blocks. In December of that year, Steve Kerr described him as a "once-in-a-decade player".


title: Greg Oden

text: The Big Ten honored Oden as "Player of the Week", along with Wisconsin's Alando Tucker, on January 29, 2007. In the previous week, he had averaged 18 points and 11.5 rebounds. On March 6, 2007, Oden was named First Team All-Big Ten as well being voted the conference's Defensive Player of the Year. Oden fouled out for the first time in his college career against Xavier in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, and was bothered by foul trouble throughout the tournament. In the Sweet Sixteen, Oden blocked a potential game-winning shot in the final seconds against Tennessee to preserve an 85–84 victory and went on to lead Ohio State past Memphis and Georgetown to advance to the 2007 National Championship. In the title game, Oden scored 25 points and had 12 rebounds and 4 blocked shots in a losing effort against the Florida Gators.


title: Greg Oden

text: Oden, alongside Kevin Durant, Arron Afflalo, Alando Tucker and Acie Law were named to the Associated Press All-American Team. Oden and Durant were the first freshmen voted to the All-American First Team since 1990, and the third and fourth overall. Throughout his high school and college career, Oden never lost a home game.


title: Greg Oden

text: On April 20, 2007, Oden announced that he would be entering the 2007 NBA draft. On June 28, 2007, he was selected by the Portland Trail Blazers with the #1 overall pick. To begin his Trail Blazers career, Oden chose the uniform number 52. On July 1, before his first NBA practice, Oden was signed to a contract which provided for two guaranteed seasons and team options for third and fourth seasons. On September 14, 2007, Oden had microfracture surgery on his ailing right knee. He missed the entire season. Oden's progress was recorded on the Trail Blazers' website and his blog.


title: Greg Oden

text: Although drafted in 2007, Oden was classified as a rookie for the 2008–09 season because of the knee injury. Entering the 2008–09 season, he was listed at , but according to Blazers' trainer Jay Jensen he weighed about in July. Oden left his NBA debut with a foot injury after playing thirteen scoreless minutes against the Los Angeles Lakers. He returned on November 12, 2008, after missing two weeks, and scored his first NBA points in the first quarter against the Miami Heat. On January 19, 2009, Oden had a career-high 24 points while also grabbing 15 rebounds in a 102–85 win against the Milwaukee Bucks. On February 13, 2009, he injured his left knee in a game against the Golden State Warriors, by bumping knees with opponent Corey Maggette, and missed three weeks due to a chipped knee cap.


title: Greg Oden

text: On November 23, 2009, Oden matched his career-high for points in a game again with 24. He set a new career-high for rebounds in a game with 20 on December 1. On December 5, 2009, Oden injured his left knee in the first quarter of a game. He was taken off the court on two connected stretchers. Later, he underwent surgery for a fractured left patella and missed the rest of the season. That injury marked the second time Oden had missed major playing time due to injury.


title: Greg Oden

text: On November 17, 2010, the team announced that Oden would have microfracture surgery on his left knee, ending his 2010–11 season. The injury marked Oden's third NBA season cut short due to a knee injury.


title: Greg Oden

text: On December 9, 2011, the Trail Blazers announced that Oden had suffered an unspecified "setback" that left them less optimistic about his ability to play in the 2011–2012 season. Rather than signing an 8.9-million-dollar qualifying offer, Oden and the team negotiated a different offer. On February 3, 2012, Oden underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right knee. On February 20, 2012, Oden was scheduled for a procedure on his left knee similar to the procedure he underwent 17 days earlier. However, during the operation, further damage to the articular cartilage was discovered, and Oden underwent his third micro-fracture surgery.


title: Greg Oden

text: On March 15, 2012, Oden was waived by the Trail Blazers to create room on the roster for trade acquisitions. In May 2012, Oden announced his intention to sit out the 2012–13 season to focus on rehabbing his injuries. In January 2013, it was reported that several teams were interested in signing Oden for the 2013–14 season.


title: Greg Oden

text: On August 7, 2013, Oden signed a one-year deal with the Miami Heat. He played in his first NBA game since December 5, 2009, in a preseason game against the New Orleans Pelicans on October 23, 2013. He managed to score two points through a dunk attempt and grabbed two rebounds in four minutes of play.


title: Greg Oden

text: On January 15, 2014, Oden made his long-awaited return to the court. In his first regular-season game since December 2009, he recorded 6 points and 2 rebounds in 8 minutes of game time in a 114–97 loss to the Washington Wizards. On February 23, 2014, Oden made his first start since December 2009 in the Heat's 93–79 win over the Chicago Bulls. The Heat made the 2014 NBA Finals where they faced the San Antonio Spurs. They went on to lose the series in five games.


title: Greg Oden

text: In March 2015, Oden was reported to be working out with the Memphis Grizzlies, while he also returned to his alma mater, Ohio State, to undergo some "high-level training" with Thad Matta, then Ohio State basketball team coach. Matta stated that since September 2014, Oden had been working out with the other Ohio State coaches. In June 2015, Oden had workouts with the Charlotte Hornets and the Dallas Mavericks. He told the media that he was attempting an NBA comeback with plans to return to the league for the 2016–17 season.


title: Greg Oden

text: On August 26, 2015, Oden signed a one-year, $1.2 million contract with the Jiangsu Dragons of the Chinese Basketball Association. On December 9, he recorded a season-high 22 points and 14 rebounds in a win over Shandong. On February 1, 2016, he parted ways with Jiangsu. In 25 games for the club, he averaged 13.0 points, 12.6 rebounds and 2.0 blocks per game.


title: Greg Oden

text: In July 2018, Oden agreed to play as a reserve with the Scarlet & Gray, a team of Ohio State alumni who competed in The Basketball Tournament 2018, a $2 million winner-take-all summer tournament. Oden made his debut for Scarlet & Gray on July 27, scoring 11 points in 16 minutes of playing time. Scarlet & Gray fell to Team Fredette on July 29, with Oden playing nine minutes while recording two points, an assist, and a block.


title: Greg Oden

text: On April 12, 2016, Oden was hired by the Ohio State Buckeyes men's basketball team to be the student manager for the team while he went back to finish his degree at the college. Oden and his wife have one child. In 2019, Oden graduated from Ohio State with a bachelor's degree in sport industry.


title: Greg Oden

text: On November 21, 2019, Edyoucore Sports & Entertainment announced that Oden had joined their team as an athlete advisor.


title: Greg Oden

text: In April 2022, Oden joined Thad Matta's staff at Butler University as director of basketball operations.


title: Greg Oden

text: On August 11, 2014, Oden was charged with battery for punching his ex-girlfriend in the face on August 7 in Lawrence, Indiana. He pleaded guilty in 2015 to battery with moderate bodily injury, and the other three charges were dropped. He was put on probation and ordered to pay a fine and attend counseling.


title: Jeremy Piven

text: Jeremy Samuel Piven (born July 26, 1965) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Ari Gold in the comedy series "Entourage", for which he won a Golden Globe Award and three consecutive Emmy Awards. He also starred in the British period drama "Mr Selfridge", which tells the story of the man who created the English department store Selfridges, and portrayed Spence Kovak on Ellen DeGeneres's sitcom "Ellen".


title: Jeremy Piven

text: Piven was born in Manhattan and raised in a Reconstructionist Jewish family of Ukrainian Jewish descent.


title: Jeremy Piven

text: His parents are Byrne Piven (1929–2002) and Joyce Hiller Piven (née Goldstein), both of whom were actors and drama teachers. His elder sister is director Shira Piven, whom he has described as one of his first acting teachers; his brother-in-law is director Adam McKay.


title: Jeremy Piven

text: He grew up in Evanston, Illinois, and graduated from Evanston Township High School. As a teenager, he attended Harand Theater Camp in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, where he played Bernardo in "West Side Story". In Illinois, he trained at Piven Theatre Workshop, founded by his parents. He also attended Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where he departed after his sophomore year to attend New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He left Tisch during his senior year to pursue his acting career and is an alumnus of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. He spent a semester at the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut.


title: Jeremy Piven

text: He has appeared in a number of films with John Cusack, who is also from Evanston and is a fellow alumnus of the Piven Theatre Workshop (as are Cusack's sisters Joan and Ann). Piven and Cusack once shared an apartment and have been friends since high school.


title: Jeremy Piven

text: One of Piven's early roles was Spike in "Lucas" (1986). His first important role came in 1992 when he became a regular cast member on HBO's "The Larry Sanders Show," where he played head writer Jerry. He left the show in the second season after growing tired of the role, because his character was not given much of a background.


title: Jeremy Piven

text: In 1993, he portrayed George Costanza on the show-within-a-show scene in the two-part "Seinfeld" episode "The Pilot". He was a supporting cast member on the last three seasons of the sitcom "Ellen", where he played Ellen's cousin Spence. He also starred in and produced the short-lived ABC dramedy series "Cupid," and voiced Elongated Man in three episodes of "Justice League Unlimited".


title: Jeremy Piven

text: Beginning in 2004, Piven achieved significant success as the fast-talking, acerbic Hollywood agent Ari Gold in the HBO series "Entourage". He received Emmy nominations for Best Supporting Actor for four straight years, from 2005 to 2008, and won the award in 2006, 2007 and 2008. He also received Golden Globe nominations for the role from 2005 to 2010, and won in 2008.


title: Jeremy Piven

text: Piven has appeared in numerous successful films, including "Grosse Pointe Blank", "Singles", "Very Bad Things", "The Family Man", "Black Hawk Down", "The Kingdom", "Heat", "PCU", "Old School", "Rock N Rolla", "Serendipity", "Smokin' Aces", and "Runaway Jury". He has also made cameo appearances in "Rush Hour 2" and the U.S. release of "Cars".


title: Jeremy Piven

text: In 2007, Piven appeared in the video for "Drivin' Me Wild", the third single from rapper Common's seventh album, "Finding Forever". The two were co-stars in "Smokin' Aces" and appeared together when Piven hosted "SNL" in January 2007.


title: Jeremy Piven

text: Piven appeared in the first Broadway revival of David Mamet's "Speed-the-Plow". The production began preview performances on October 3, 2008, and opened on October 23, 2008; the play was due to run through February 22, 2009. After Piven missed several performances, on December 17, 2008, Piven's representation announced that due to an undisclosed illness, Piven would be ending his run in the play effective immediately. The illness was revealed to be hydrargyria, a disease caused by exposure to mercury or its compounds, though the source is unknown. Rumours have indicated that the high level of mercury could potentially have been caused by Piven's habit of consuming fish twice a day for the past 20 years. An alternative explanation is that the herbal remedies Piven was taking were responsible for his high levels of mercury. Mamet joked that Piven was leaving the play "to pursue a career as a thermometer." On September 1, 2009, Piven, in a guest appearance on the "Late Show with David Letterman", explained that he had given up red meat and poultry, and had been getting all of his protein from fish for the past 20 years.


title: Jeremy Piven

text: On August 3, 2009, Piven guest hosted the "WWE Raw" wrestling program. In August 2011, he stated he was interested in portraying the drummer from the Who, Keith Moon. From 2013 to 2016, he played the title role in the British television drama series "Mr Selfridge", the semi-fictional story based on the life of Harry Selfridge, who founded the London department store Selfridge's. The show aired on the ITV network in the United Kingdom and on PBS in the United States.


title: Jeremy Piven

text: On August 1, 2019, Piven appeared on a KTVU morning news segment to promote a standup comedy show he was to perform in the next night in San Francisco.


title: Jeremy Piven

text: Piven starred in the Travel Channel special "Jeremy Piven's Journey of a Lifetime", which detailed his journey across India. He resides in Malibu, California.


title: Jeremy Piven

text: Piven plays drums and has played on stage with the notable Chicago-based progressive rock / jam band Umphrey's McGee in 2004.


title: Jeremy Piven

text: In 2016, Piven endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders for President of the United States during the 2016 presidential election.


title: Jeremy Piven

text: On October 30, 2017, adult film actress and reality television personality Ariane Bellamar made accusations via Twitter that Piven had groped her. The next day, Piven responded to these allegations, writing: "I unequivocally deny the appalling allegations being peddled about me. It did not happen". Cassidy Freeman came to Bellamar's defense in an Instagram post, stating that Piven engaged in "predatory behavior" toward her when she was "far too young". On November 9, advertising executive Tiffany Bacon Scourby alleged that Piven had attacked her in 2003, stating that he had "jumped on" her, "exposed his genitals, held her hands down and began rubbing against her body until he ejaculated". Piven responded to the allegations, calling them "absolutely false and completely fabricated". A representative for Piven said the actor was "looking at legal options".


title: Jeremy Piven

text: On November 13, 2017, Piven voluntarily took a polygraph test in which he was asked a series of questions about each allegation and again denied them. He passed the test with "no signs of deception". The polygraph test was administered by a member of the American Polygraph Association.


title: Jeremy Piven

text: Later that month, Anastasia Taneie, who worked as an extra on "Entourage", alleged that Piven "confronted her in a dark hallway and groped her breast and genitals as he forcefully pushed her against a wall". On November 27, 2017, CBS decided not to order a full season of "Wisdom of the Crowd" following weak ratings and allegations of sexual harassment involving Piven.


title: Jeremy Piven

text: In January 2018, BuzzFeed published an article in which three more women accused Piven of "sexual misconduct or inappropriate behavior". They alleged Piven pinned down one woman on a couch after following her to her trailer on the set of a film in 1985, engaged in "physically aggressive" behavior with another while on a date, and attempted to force himself on the third woman in a hotel room around 1994. BuzzFeed News corroborated the stories with eight people who said the women had shared the encounters with them in the years since.


title: Jeremy Piven

text: Piven "vehemently denied" all the allegations, and his lawyer called them "works of fiction", saying they were opportunistic efforts to "obtain attention and/or money". Piven submitted a written statement to BuzzFeed in which he referred to the lie detector test he had taken and asserted: "I have never forced myself on anyone, nor have I ever exposed myself or restrained anyone against their will. To the contrary, if any woman ever said no, I stopped".


title: Bert Kreischer

text: Bert Kreischer (born November 3, 1972), nicknamed "The Machine", is an American stand-up comedian, podcaster, reality television host and actor. In 1997, he was featured in an article in "Rolling Stone" while attending Florida State University. The magazine named Kreischer "the top partyer at the Number One Party School in the country." The article also served as inspiration for the 2002 film "National Lampoon's Van Wilder". Kreischer has served as host of the television series "Hurt Bert" on FX as well as "Bert the Conqueror" and "Trip Flip" on Travel Channel. He is slated to appear in "The Machine", a comedy film based on his life.


title: Bert Kreischer

text: He is the producer and host of "Bertcast", a weekly comedy podcast on the All Things Comedy network. He is also the co-host of the "2 Bears, 1 Cave" podcast with fellow comedian Tom Segura, and co-host of the "Bill Bert" podcast with actor and comedian Bill Burr.


title: Bert Kreischer

text: Albert Kreischer Jr. was born November 3, 1972, in St. Petersburg, Florida, and raised in Tampa. His mother worked in early childhood development and his father worked as a real-estate attorney. He attended a private Jesuit high school then went on to attend Florida State University (FSU). Kreischer majored in English and was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity.


title: Bert Kreischer

text: In 1997, during Kreischer's sixth year at FSU, the university was ranked number one by The Princeton Review in their annual list of the top "party schools" in the United States. Later that same year Kreischer became the focus of a six-page article in "Rolling Stone" who named him "the top partyer at the Number One Party School in the country." Titled "Bert Kreischer: The Undergraduate," the article recounted Kreischer's party hijinks, which included bouts of heavy drinking and public nudity. From the Rolling Stone article director Oliver Stone optioned the rights to Kreischer's life. When the development deal with Oliver Stone fell through, all the scripts that were submitted went back to their writers. One of these writers changed Kreischer's name and sold the script to National Lampoon. This became the basis for the 2002 film "National Lampoon's Van Wilder", starring Ryan Reynolds.


title: Bert Kreischer

text: When asked about his involvement in the film, Kreischer told the "New York Post" in 2014: "I've never seen it. I had nothing to do with it." On Joe Rogan's podcast, Kreischer talked about how National Lampoon executives confirmed to him that he was the basis for the film. He also confirmed that he would never sue National Lampoon for having made the movie without his involvement.


title: Bert Kreischer

text: Kreischer's first experience with stand-up comedy was at Potbelly's, a bar and nightclub in Tallahassee, Florida. Kreischer moved to New York City after a tape of one of his sets was sent to a talent agent who invited him to the city to watch some stand-up shows. Kreischer worked the door at the now-defunct Boston Comedy Club.


title: Bert Kreischer

text: Kreischer is known for performing stand-up comedy while shirtless. He is also known for his storytelling; his most popular story is about how he allegedly earned the nickname "The Machine". The story revolves around how he inadvertently helped the Russian mafia rob a train while on a college trip to Russia.


title: Bert Kreischer

text: In 2004 Kreischer was featured along with four other comedians on the DVD release "National Lampoon Live: New Faces – Volume 2". That same year one of his stories appeared on an episode of the animated Comedy Central series "Shorties Watchin' Shorties".


title: Bert Kreischer

text: As a stand-up comedian Kreischer has performed internationally and has appeared on late night talk shows "Late Show with David Letterman", "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and "Conan". He also appeared regularly as a guest on "Rachael Ray" from 2011 to 2015.


title: Bert Kreischer

text: In 2009 his first comedy special "Bert Kreischer: Comfortably Dumb" appeared on Comedy Central. His second special "Bert Kreischer: The Machine" was released in 2016 on Showtime.


title: Bert Kreischer

text: In 2015 he appeared on Comedy Central's comedy storytelling series "This Is Not Happening". His story for the show was about his experience wrestling a bear for the television series "Hurt Bert".


title: Bert Kreischer

text: In August 2018, Kreisher released "Bert Kreischer: Secret Time" on Netflix, Filming took place in Philadelphia.


title: Bert Kreischer

text: In March 2020, Kreisher released "Bert Kreischer: Hey Big Boy" on Netflix, Filming took place in Cleveland.


title: Bert Kreischer

text: Kreischer produces and hosts "Bertcast", a weekly comedy podcast on the All Things Comedy network. Launched in 2012, Bert records his podcast from his Man Cave that was built for him for an episode of "Man Caves", a home improvement reality television program. Kreischer co-hosts the "2 Bears 1 Cave" podcast with Tom Segura, and the "Bill Bert" podcast with Bill Burr.


title: Bert Kreischer

text: Kreischer has also been a guest on podcasts such as "WTF with Marc Maron", Doug Benson's "Doug Loves Movies", "H3 Podcast", "Your Mom's House" and "The Joe Rogan Experience".


title: Bert Kreischer

text: Within five months of moving to New York City to pursue a career in comedy, Will Smith's Production Company offered Kreischer a deal for a sitcom. When he was featured on "Bert the Conqueror", Kreischer traveled to amusement parks and other entertainment venues across the United States in order to experience thrilling rides and activities. Kreischer, who has a fear of heights, can be seen riding roller coasters and other amusement park rides as well as engaging in activities such as jumping off the Stratosphere tower in Las Vegas and being fired from a human slingshot. While in New York Kreischer attended open mics hosted by TV producer DJ Nash that were also attended by the likes of Demetri Martin, Bobby Kelly and Jim Norton. In 2001 Kreischer also starred in a television pilot based on Nash's life titled "Life With David J".


title: Gary Payton

text: Gary Dwayne Payton Sr. (born July 23, 1968) is an American former professional basketball player who played the point guard position. Widely considered one of the greatest point guards of all time, he is best known for his 13-year tenure with the Seattle SuperSonics, where he holds franchise records in points, assists, and steals. He also played with the Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Lakers, Boston Celtics, and Miami Heat. Payton won an NBA championship with the Heat in 2006. Nicknamed "the Glove" for his defensive abilities, Payton was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013. In October 2021, Payton was named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.


title: Gary Payton

text: Payton is the first point guard to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award, and the only point guard winner in the award's first 39 years, until Marcus Smart was selected in 2022. He was selected to the NBA All-Defensive First Team nine times, an NBA record he shares with Michael Jordan, Kevin Garnett, and Kobe Bryant. He was also a nine-time NBA All-Star and a nine-time All-NBA Team member. Payton was called "probably as complete a guard as there ever was" by Basketball Hall of Famer Gail Goodrich.


title: Gary Payton

text: Born and raised in Oakland, California, Payton played high school basketball at Skyline High School, along with former NBA player Greg Foster, and headed north in 1986 to attend Oregon State University in Corvallis. At one point, he wanted to attend The University of Texas at El Paso, but Don Haskins later rescinded his offer after Payton was deciding between UTEP and St. John's. In his sophomore year of high school, his grades plummeted and he was declared academically ineligible. His father encouraged him to focus on school, and he was allowed to play again. Throughout his four-year career at Oregon State, he became one of the most decorated basketball players in school history.


title: Gary Payton

text: During his senior season in 1989–90, Payton was featured in the cover story of "Sports Illustrated" on March 5 as the nation's best college basketball player. He was a consensus All-American, a three-time All-Pac-10 selection, and both the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year and conference Freshman of the Year in 1987. He was the MVP of the Far West Classic tournament three times, the Pac-10 Player of the Week nine times, and named to the Pac-10's All-Decade Team. At the time of his graduation, Payton held the school record for points, field goals, three-point field goals, assists, and steals – all of which he still holds today except for career points and three-point field goals. During his career at OSU, the Beavers made three NCAA tournament appearances and one NIT appearance. He was elected into OSU's Sports Hall of Fame in 1996.


title: Gary Payton

text: Payton was the second overall pick in the 1990 NBA draft by the Seattle SuperSonics. In his third career game, Payton recorded his first double-double of his career after recording 13 points and 10 assists in a road win over the Nuggets. On February 23, 1991, Payton recorded his first career triple-double after recording 18 points, 10 rebounds, and 11 assists in a losing effort to the Suns. The following game, Payton scored only 2 points but dished out 16 assists, a then career-high for him. He joined Slick Watts and Nate McMillan as the only SuperSonics' players to have dished out 16 or more assists in his rookie season. Throughout his rookie campaign, Payton recorded 8 point-assist double-doubles, the most by any SuperSonics' player in history. His average for his rookie season is 7.2 points per game, 3.0 rebounds per game, 6.4 assists per game, and 2.0 steals per game.


title: Gary Payton

text: In his second season, Payton recorded 2 triple-doubles on the whole season joining Slick Watts and Nate McMillan at that time to have recorded 2 triple-doubles in a season in Supersonics franchise history. He scored a season-high 22 points to go along with 7 assists in road win over the Bullets back in November 19, 1991. His season average is 9.4 points per game, 3.6 rebounds per game, 6.2 assists per game, 1.8 steals per game, and 0.3 blocks per game.


title: Gary Payton

text: Payton spent his first 12½ seasons with the Sonics. Entering the league to star-studded expectations, Payton struggled during his first two seasons in the league, averaging 8.2 points per game during that span. However, he soon proved himself to be one of the league's top point guards, while, during the 1990s Payton, alongside Shawn Kemp formed the "Sonic Boom". He earned his first of 9 consecutive All-NBA team selections when he was chosen to the All-NBA Third team in 1994. Payton would go on to make the All-NBA First-Team in 1998 and 2000, All-NBA Second Team in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, and 2002, and All-NBA Third Team in 1994 and 2001. He was selected to the NBA All-Defensive First Team a record nine consecutive seasons (1994–2002), and won the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award in 1996, the first point guard to win the award. He has been selected to the NBA All-Star Team nine times and was voted as a starter in 1997 and 1998. He was a member of the gold medal-winning 1996 and 2000 U.S. Men's Olympic Basketball Teams. In 1996, Payton and the SuperSonics, under coach George Karl, reached the NBA Finals after winning a franchise record 64 games and lost in six games to Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls.


title: Gary Payton

text: Payton feuded with Howard Schultz, who bought the SuperSonics in 2001. When Payton did not attend the first day of training camp in 2002, Schultz decided to trade Payton.


title: Gary Payton

text: In the middle of the 2002–03 season at the trade deadline, Payton was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks along with Desmond Mason in exchange for Ray Allen, Kevin Ollie, and Ronald Murray. Payton played the remaining 28 games with the Bucks, averaging 19.6 points and 7.4 assists per game. The Bucks faced the defending Eastern Conference champion New Jersey Nets in the first round of the playoffs, pushing the Nets to six games before losing to the more experienced and well rounded Nets. Payton led the Bucks in scoring (18.5) and assists (8.7) during the series, which included a 20-point, 14-assist performance in a Game 4 Milwaukee win.


title: Gary Payton

text: As an unrestricted free agent prior to the 2003–04 season, Payton, along with Karl Malone, signed with the Los Angeles Lakers to make a run at their first NBA Championship. Payton started in all 82 games and averaged 14.6 points with 5.5 assists and 1.2 steals, but struggled with Lakers coach Phil Jackson's triangle offense, which limited his ball-handling and post-up opportunities. Payton provided offense in games where superstar teammates Shaquille O'Neal or Kobe Bryant could not play due to injury, including a 30-point outburst in an overtime win against the Cleveland Cavaliers on February 4.


title: Gary Payton

text: Despite injuries to Malone, O'Neal and Bryant throughout the season, the Lakers won 56 games and the Pacific Division. In the playoffs, Payton averaged just 7.8 points per game, but scored 15 points in Games 3 and 6 of the Lakers' semifinals series against the San Antonio Spurs, and scored 18 points to go with nine assists in Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals against the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Lakers would reach the NBA Finals before falling to the Detroit Pistons in five games.


title: Gary Payton

text: Prior to the 2004–05 season, the Lakers traded Payton and Rick Fox to the Boston Celtics for center Chris Mihm, small forward Jumaine Jones and point guard Chucky Atkins. While Payton expressed displeasure with the trade, he ultimately did report to Boston and began the 2004–05 season as the Celtics' starting point guard. On February 24, 2005, Payton was traded to the Atlanta Hawks in a deal that brought former Celtic Antoine Walker back to Boston. The Hawks then waived Payton immediately following the trade, and he returned a week later to Boston as a free agent. Payton started all 77 games he played for Boston and averaged 11.3 points per game and 6.1 assists as the Celtics won the Atlantic Division before losing in the first round to the Indiana Pacers.


title: Gary Payton

text: On September 22, 2005, he signed a one-year $1.1 million contract with Miami, reuniting with Walker (who was acquired seven weeks earlier by the Heat), as well as former Lakers' teammate Shaquille O'Neal. Serving as a backup to Jason Williams, Payton averaged 7.7 points and started 25 of 81 games. In the playoffs, Payton did not start but averaged 24.3 minutes a game after averaging 28.5 minutes during the regular season, often playing during pressure situations in the 4th quarter of games. In Game 4 of the semifinals against the New Jersey Nets, Payton hit a critical three-pointer with 56 seconds left in the game to clinch the Heat victory. In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals on the road against the Detroit Pistons, Payton scored 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting, helping the Heat set the tone in the series. Miami won the series in 6 games to reach the team's first ever Finals against the Dallas Mavericks. Miami lost the first two games in Dallas and trailed in the final quarter of Game 3 before a comeback led by Dwyane Wade culminated with a Jason Williams pass to Payton, who faked his defender and hit the game-winning jump shot to keep Miami from falling 3–0 in the series. In Game 5, Payton scored 8 points, including Miami's final field goal with 29 seconds left, to help clinch a one-point victory. The Heat returned to Dallas for Game 6 and won 95–92, securing their first and Payton's only NBA title.


title: Gary Payton

text: On September 6, 2006, the 38-year-old Payton re-signed with the defending champion Miami Heat on a one-year, $1.2 million contract. During the subsequent 2006–07 NBA season, Payton continued to climb up several NBA all-time lists: he moved from 17th to 8th in all-time NBA games played, passed John Havlicek and Robert Parish to move into 7th in all-time minutes played, and passed Hal Greer and Larry Bird to become the 21st-highest scorer in NBA history.


title: Gary Payton

text: Payton is well known for his trash-talk. His trademark open-mouth, bobbing-head style on the court (combined with his 17 years in the league) led to Payton receiving the fourth-most technical fouls of all time (behind Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, and Rasheed Wallace) with 250. This, along with other factors, earned Payton a reputation as a difficult, volatile, and somewhat egotistical presence in the locker room, which was further fueled by various fines and suspensions handed out to him by team management during Payton's last few years in Seattle.


title: Gary Payton

text: However, Payton became much less volatile in his later years, and many players, including Shaquille O'Neal and Antoine Walker, have greatly enjoyed playing with Payton. In Los Angeles, Boston, and Miami, he was recognized as a psychological leader and mentor for many of the younger players. Of his trash talking, Payton has stated "I never take it too far...I just try to talk and get their mind off the game, and turn their attention on me", adding that "sometimes I get accused of trash talking even though I'm not...[referees and spectators] immediately figure you're trash talking. But I could be talking to a guy about what's going on or asking about his family." One of Payton's major beliefs is that "mental toughness" is as much a part of the game as on-court play. In addition, All-Star point guard Jason Kidd has referred to Payton as a "mentor" for the way he treated Kidd growing up in the same neighborhood of Oakland. Payton has said that his own mental toughness was developed in his days learning to play basketball in Oakland: "You learned that you can be friends before the game and after the game. But once the game starts, it's all about business. No jive."


title: Gary Payton

text: Payton has appeared in many movies and television shows, and in 2001, gave a humorous, televised "motivational speech" to his team during the NBA All-Star Game.


title: Gary Payton

text: Payton's nickname of "The Glove" in reference to his defensive skills was popularized during the 1993 Western Conference Finals series against Phoenix.


title: Gary Payton

text: Since Payton's career ended in 2007, he has been mentioned among the all-time greatest point guards. Gail Goodrich, who played with Hall of Fame guard Jerry West, said "Gary Payton is probably as complete a guard as there ever was." Kevin Johnson considers Payton "certainly...amongst the best ever" and "just as intimidating...maybe even more so than all-time greats Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas, Tiny Archibald, and Maurice Cheeks." When asked to classify the best players in each position of the late 1990s and early 21st century, NBA coach George Karl said of Payton, "I don't know who else you'd take at point guard. Some say Jason Kidd. Well, every time Gary went nose-to-nose with Kidd, Gary won that matchup."


title: Gary Payton

text: Payton's all-time rankings for points (31st) and assists (8th) highlight the tremendous offensive contributions he made throughout his career, but he is most widely recognized for his defensive contributions. "The Sporting News" said in 2000 that Payton was "building a case as the best two-way point guard in history", and asked "If you weigh offense and defense equally, is Payton the best ever?"


title: Gary Payton

text: When comparing Payton to the all-time greats, it has been said that "Payton arguably is the best defender of them all, and his offensive game is better than most."


title: Gary Payton

text: His defensive prowess was once described by Kevin Johnson:"You think of guys with great hands, like Maurice Cheeks and Derek Harper. Gary is like that. But he's also a great individual defender and a great team defender. He has all three components covered. That's very rare."


title: Gary Payton

text: Offensively, Payton was not a particularly strong shooter, but was much more physical than most point guards of his era, preferring to use his body frame and strength to shield defenders on his way to the basket or posting up his opponent in an isolation play. Nonetheless, in his prime, Payton was the "NBA's reigning high scorer among point guards."


title: Gary Payton

text: He was the only guard to have won the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award since Michael Jordan in 1988, until Marcus Smart received the award in 2022. Also, he, Jordan, Kevin Garnett, and Kobe Bryant share the record for most career NBA All-Defensive First Team selections, with nine. He is currently fourth all-time in career steals. A strong all-around player, Payton also ranks fifth all-time among guards in defensive rebounds though not alone, 12th in offensive rebounds, and 10th in total rebounds for a guard. Among players considered point guards, Payton ranks 3rd in defensive rebounds, 5th in offensive rebounds, and 4th in total rebounds, behind Jason Kidd, Oscar Robertson, and Magic Johnson.


title: Gary Payton

text: Payton is also considered one of the best defensive opponents of Michael Jordan, and the two players had a high-profile rivalry that culminated in the 1996 NBA Finals. Jordan and Payton have both won the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award and despite their different positions (shooting guard and point guard respectively), they were well matched for other reasons. Both were prodigious "trash talkers" (Larry Johnson once named Payton, Jordan and himself the best three trash talkers in the league), had legendary competitiveness, and as the 1997 "NBA Preview" magazine stated, "Payton [was] quick, and strong as an ox", making him the kind of player who could frustrate Jordan defensively. Payton, at and with a tough physique, was one of a handful of point guards with the size and body type to guard Jordan.


title: Gary Payton

text: Midway through the 1996 NBA Finals, Seattle coach George Karl decided to assign Payton to play defense as a shooting guard instead of his normal point guard assignment in order to defend Jordan. Though the Bulls won the series, Seattle's (and especially Payton's) defense held Jordan and the Bulls to their lowest offensive output in an NBA finals and "frustrated the best player in the game." In his first three NBA Finals, Jordan averaged 36.3 points per game and had scored at least 30 points in 14 of his 17 games. However, in the 1996 Finals, Jordan averaged 27.3 points per game and scored more than 30 points in only one of the six games. In a Game 5 preview after Payton had held Jordan to a career NBA Finals low of 23, an NBA pregame show described the rivalry of two strong defensive players renowned for their competitiveness. "[In Game 4, Jordan had his] lowest output in a Finals game, much of it with Payton guarding him. Though afterwards, Jordan refused to give Payton credit, saying 'No one can stop me, I can only stop myself. I missed some easy shots.' The truth is, Jordan finds the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year [Payton] annoying. He views the [young Payton] as impudent, and he would love to have a big game at [Payton's] expense." (NBA on NBC Preview, Game 5) The Sonics won that game by 21 points and Payton held Jordan to 26 points – Jordan's second-lowest-scoring Finals game in his career up to that point. In Game 6, which the Bulls would win to capture the Championship, Payton played 47 minutes and Jordan missed 14 of his 19 shots, getting a career Finals low 22 points. Bill Walton, commentating for NBC at the time, said Payton "outplayed" Jordan during the second half of the series, and that Seattle coach George Karl would "rue" the decision to "hide [Payton] from 'the king'" in the early games of the series. During this series, Payton and his Sonics also held Jordan's Bulls to the lowest-scoring quarter in their NBA Finals history. Michael Jordan would never score fewer points in an NBA Finals game than his 22 points in game 6, and would never be held under 30 points more than twice in a Finals series, which the Sonics did five times.


title: Gary Payton

text: Later, of his performance that series, Payton said "You've got to get back at Jordan, you can't back down on him. If you do, he's like a wolf, he's going to eat everything. He knew I wasn't going to back down. I had to realize or see if he is really about being a dog, about this neighborhood stuff. I went at him. It was just me being me."


title: Gary Payton

text: Many attribute his success to the tremendous work ethic and ability to play through injury he displayed throughout his career. In his 17-year career, Payton missed only 25 games, and at one point held the longest active streak for consecutive games played, with over 300. "The Sporting News" noted in a 2000 article, "Durability always has been one of Payton's strong suits. He has missed only two games in 10 seasons and is generally counted on for nearly a full game's worth of nonstop motion, despite chronic back pain that requires extensive stretching and regular applications of heating packs." Karl Malone was the only player to log more minutes of playing time than Payton in the 1990s. "Sports Illustrated" labeled Payton's 2003–04 season as the best season ever by a point guard aged 35 or older, with the exception of John Stockton's later years, and Payton continued to play at a high level even as he advanced in age.


title: Gary Payton

text: In his later years, Payton gained recognition as a clutch performer, hitting several key shots during the Miami Heat's 2006 championship run. In 2006, he was referred to as "obviously...one of the greatest clutch shooters of our time".


title: Gary Payton

text: Payton is the son of Al and Annie Payton. He married Monique James on July 26, 1997. They later divorced. They lived in Oakland and Las Vegas and have three children: Gary II, Julian, and Raquel. Gary II has played for the Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Lakers, Washington Wizards, and the Golden State Warriors, where he won his first NBA Championship. Payton also has another son named Gary Payton Jr. with a different mother. His brother, Brandon, played in New Zealand for a period of time, playing for the Manawatu Jets.


title: Gary Payton

text: During the 2008–09 season, Payton served as a studio analyst for NBA TV and as an occasional substitute analyst on "The NBA on TNT". He was replaced with Kevin McHale for the 2009–10 season. In 2013, Payton was named an analyst for Fox Sports 1's "Fox Sports Live". For the 2016 NFL season, Payton provided weekly picks for Sports Betting Dime.


title: Gary Payton

text: Payton has appeared in "Eddie" (1996), "Like Mike" (2002), "" (2019), and also performed a speaking role in the 1999 comedy film "The Breaks". He also appeared on "The Jamie Foxx Show".


title: Gary Payton

text: Payton has made numerous well-regarded contributions of both time and money to the community. He set up "The Gary Payton Foundation" in 1996 to provide safe places for recreational activity, and to help underprivileged youth in his hometown of Oakland stay in school. He hosts an annual charity basketball game as part of his foundation. Payton also gave back to the East Oakland Youth Development Center (EOYDC), a youth center that he attended in Oakland when he was growing up. In 2001, Payton donated $100,000 to renovate EOYDC's gym – his first big grant in his hometown of Oakland. Payton and his wife, Monique, have been active in fundraising endeavors for HIV awareness, and Payton has lent many hours and provided tremendous financial support to the Boys & Girls Club of America and the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Payton has also donated Miami Heat tickets to underprivileged children. For the Christmas of 2003 he took 10 families from the Ronald McDonald House in Los Angeles and let each of the over 40 children have a $100 shopping spree at FAO Schwarz. For Christmas, 2005, he gave 60 children $100 Toys-R-Us shopping sprees as part of the Voices For Children program. In 1999, he wrote an autobiographical children's book entitled "Confidence Counts" as part of the "Positively for Kids" series, illustrating the importance of confidence through events in his own life. In July 1999, Payton was named to The Sporting News' "Good Guys in Sports" list. Payton hosted a radio show in early 1998 on Seattle's KUBE 93.3 station. He played hip-hop including The Roots, Raekwon, Outkast, and Cam'ron. He did it for charity during the NBA lockout. During the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft for the Seattle Kraken, he made an appearance alongside former teammate Shawn Kemp.


title: Gary Payton

text: Since the Sonics' move to Oklahoma City, Payton has openly expressed his desire not to have his retired jersey number in Oklahoma City as part of that team's history. He wishes instead for it to remain in Seattle, where he enjoyed the majority of his career's success and popularity. This seems likely as the SuperSonics' team name, colors, uniforms and trophies are remaining in Seattle for a possible future team to adopt upon arrival. Despite no official acknowledgement from the Thunder, they have not issued the number 20 to any player since their relocation.


title: Gary Payton

text: Payton is featured in the documentary "Sonicsgate", which covers the team's relocation from Seattle to Oklahoma City. When Sonicsgate won a Webby Award for Best Sports Film, Payton gave the acceptance speech, which consisted solely of the five words "Bring back our Seattle SuperSonics."


title: Gary Payton

text: Payton is currently working on bringing the NBA back to Seattle, aligning himself with the Oak View Group.


title: Alan Thicke

text: Alan Thicke (born Alan Willis Jeffrey; March 1, 1947December 13, 2016) was a Canadian actor, songwriter, and game and talk show host. He is the father of singer Robin Thicke. In 2013, Thicke was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. Thicke was best known for playing Dr. Jason Seaver on the 1980s sitcom "Growing Pains" on ABC.


title: Alan Thicke

text: Thicke was born in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, the son of Shirley "Joan" Isobel Marie ("née" Greer), a nurse, and William Jeffrey, a stockbroker. They divorced in 1953. His mother remarried Brian Thicke, a physician, and they moved to Elliot Lake. Alan Thicke graduated from Elliot Lake Secondary School in 1965 and was elected homecoming king. He went on to attend the University of Western Ontario joining the Delta Upsilon fraternity.


title: Alan Thicke

text: Thicke hosted the Canadian game show "Face The Music" for CHCH-TV by Niagara Television in 1975, which would not be related in any way to the Sandy Frank Productions produced version in 1980-81, then a Canadian game show on CFCF-TV in Montreal called "First Impressions" in the late 1970s and the Saturday morning celebrity game show "Animal Crack-Ups" in the late 1980s. In 1997, he hosted a television version of the board game "Pictionary". In the early 2000s, he hosted the "All New 3's a Crowd" on the Game Show Network.


title: Alan Thicke

text: Norman Lear hired Thicke to produce and head the writing staff of "Fernwood 2 Night", a tongue-in-cheek talk show based on characters from Lear's earlier show, "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman". In the late 1970s, he was a frequent guest host of "The Alan Hamel Show", a popular daytime talk show on Canadian TV, usually hosted by Alan Hamel. When the Hamel series ended in the early 1980s, it was replaced by "The Alan Thicke Show". The show at one point spawned a prime-time spinoff, "Prime Cuts", which consisted of edited highlights from the talk show. Thicke was later signed to do an American syndicated late-night talk show, "Thicke of the Night". Heavily promoted prior to broadcast as a competitor to NBC's "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson", "Thicke of the Night" was short-lived.


title: Alan Thicke

text: During 2014 and 2015 Thicke hosted a travelling dance show "Dancing Pros Live" which toured the United States.


title: Alan Thicke

text: Thicke had a successful career as a TV theme song composer, often collaborating with his then-wife Gloria Loring on these projects, which included the themes to the popular sitcoms "Diff'rent Strokes" and "The Facts of Life". He also wrote a number of TV game show themes, including "The Wizard of Odds" (for which he also sang the vocal introduction), "The Joker's Wild", "Celebrity Sweepstakes", "The Diamond Head Game", "Animal Crack-Ups" (which he co-wrote with his brother Todd Thicke and Gary Pickus), "Blank Check", "Stumpers!", "Whew!", and the original theme to "Wheel of Fortune". Thicke was a popular songwriter. He co-wrote "Sara", a solo hit for Bill Champlin and included on the latter's "Runaway" album (1981).


title: Alan Thicke

text: Thicke produced a variety of television shows, including Anne Murray Christmas specials for the CBC, beginning in the late 1970s.


title: Alan Thicke

text: Thicke played Jason Seaver, a psychiatrist and father, on the family sitcom "Growing Pains". When the show began, Jason was moving his psychiatry practice into the home to be closer to the family's children while the family matriarch Maggie, played by Joanna Kerns, resumed her career as a reporter. "Growing Pains" debuted on ABC in 1985 and ran until 1992.


title: Alan Thicke

text: Thicke reprised his role in two reunion TV movies, "The Growing Pains Movie" (2000) and "Growing Pains: Return of the Seavers" (2004).


title: Alan Thicke

text: Thicke co-hosted the Walt Disney World Very Merry Christmas Parade (now the Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade) with Joan Lunden from 1983 to 1990, when he was succeeded by Regis Philbin. Thicke also hosted the Crystal Light National Aerobic Championship from 1987 to 1988.


title: Alan Thicke

text: In 1987, Thicke appeared as Dr. Jonas Carson, who creates an android that looks just like a human teenage boy (played by Jay Underwood), and he "adopts" him as his son in the Disney Channel film "Not Quite Human". Thicke would reprise his role as Jonas Carson in two sequels, 1989's "Not Quite Human II" and 1992's "Still Not Quite Human".


title: Alan Thicke

text: In 1988, he hosted the Miss USA Pageant in El Paso, Texas, replacing Bob Barker (who quit over fur being involved in the pageants). He replaced Barker again as host of the 1988 Miss Universe Pageant (along with Tracy Scoggins) in Taipei, Taiwan. Thicke was replaced by Dick Clark as host of the 1989 Miss USA Pageant in Mobile, Alabama and by John Forsythe as host of the 1989 Miss Universe Pageant in Cancún, Mexico.


title: Alan Thicke

text: Thicke continued to host a wide range of variety TV events. In 1989, he co-hosted with SCTV alumna Andrea Martin the TV special "Opening of SkyDome" in Toronto, which aired across Canada on the CBC. In 2004, he hosted the Miss Universe Canada Pageant in Ontario.


title: Alan Thicke

text: In 1992, Thicke appeared as himself in the pilot episode of the sitcom "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper". He appeared in the end-credits scene, alongside series star Mark Curry, humorously referencing the pilot episode being filmed on the same set used as the Seavers' home on "Growing Pains".


title: Alan Thicke

text: Thicke appeared on the American television series "Hope & Gloria", which ran for 35 episodes. In April 2006, he hosted "Celebrity Cooking Showdown" on NBC, in which celebrities were teamed with famous chefs in a cooking competition. In 2006 he made an appearance in La La Land as himself. In August 2006 and 2007, Thicke made a few appearances as talk show host Rich Ginger on "The Bold and the Beautiful." Thicke also makes a cameo appearance in the 2007 movie "Alpha Dog" as the father of the lead character's girlfriend.


title: Alan Thicke

text: In 2008, Thicke appeared in a major supporting role as Jim Jarlewski in the television series adaptation of Douglas Coupland's "jPod". That same year, he had a cameo appearance in the "How I Met Your Mother" episode "Sandcastles in the Sand" as the dad in Robin Scherbatsky's second "Robin Sparkles" music video. He guest starred as himself in the episodes "The Rough Patch", "Glitter", "P.S. I Love You", and "The Rehearsal Dinner".


title: Alan Thicke

text: In February 2009, Thicke made a guest appearance on Adult Swim's "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job". In the same month, he made a guest appearance on the web series "Star-ving". He also had a role in the 2009 film, "". On July 10, 2009, Thicke appeared on the 1000th episode of "Attack of the Show!", and he sang a song with Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn.


title: Alan Thicke

text: Thicke appeared in the season six finale of "Just Shoot Me", "The Boys in the Band." He made a guest appearance on a few episodes of "Canada's Worst Handyman 5". In 2010, Thicke appeared on the television program, "Tosh.0". In October 2010, he appeared as a celebrity contestant on "Don't Forget the Lyrics", where he played for the charities ProCon.org and the Alan Thicke Center for diabetes research.


title: Alan Thicke

text: In March 2013, he participated on ABC's "Celebrity Wife Swap". He swapped wives with comedian Gilbert Gottfried.


title: Alan Thicke

text: In the 1990s, Thicke was the spokesman for the Canadian division of Woolco department stores until its demise in 1994. In 2007, Thicke appeared in a television ad for Tahiti Village, a Las Vegas time-share resort. In 2009, Thicke began appearing in TV ads endorsing CCS Medical, a distributor of home-delivered diabetes supplies. In 2014, Thicke began appearing in ad spots for Optima Tax Relief.


title: Alan Thicke

text: From 2011, Thicke was the spokesperson for Cambridge Life Solutions, a Canadian company that promised to reduce unsecured consumer debt through a method known as debt settlement, which had been outlawed in the United States by the Federal Trade Commission as a predatory practice in 2010 and was subsequently banned in Ontario in 2015. According to Scott Hannah, the president and CEO of the Credit Counseling Society of Canada, the company, which was accused of "bilking thousands of vulnerable Canadians" grew to dominate half of the Canadian market due to Thicke being hired "as a spokesman who was very credible to Canadians."


title: Alan Thicke

text: As noted, Thicke lent his name and star power to supporting the Alan Thicke Center for diabetes research. Also, for several years in the mid-1980s, Thicke and Gloria Loring were co-hosts of Telemiracle, an annual 20-hour telethon that alternated between Saskatoon and Regina, Saskatchewan, to support programs run by the Kinsmen Club.


title: Alan Thicke

text: Thicke was married three times: His first marriage, to "Days of Our Lives" actress Gloria Loring, lasted from 1970 until 1984; they had two sons, Brennan and Robin. In 1987 at the age of 40, Thicke began dating 17-year old Kristy Swanson. Two years later, they were engaged but never married. He married his second wife, Miss World 1990 Gina Tolleson, on August 13, 1994, and had a son, Carter William Thicke, before their divorce was finalized on September 29, 1999. In 1999, he met Tanya Callau in Miami, where he was a celebrity host and she was a model. They were married from 2005 until his death.


title: Alan Thicke

text: On December 13, 2016, Thicke collapsed while playing ice hockey with his son Carter at Pickwick Gardens in Burbank, California. The manager of the rink said he was talking and even joked to his son to take a photo as he was being wheeled out on a stretcher. Thicke died later that day of type-A aortic dissection at the Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, at the age of 69. On December 19, 2016, the cast of "Growing Pains", including Leonardo DiCaprio, reunited at Thicke's funeral; a eulogy was given by his friend Bob Saget, and his son, Robin, offered a humorous remembrance. He was buried at Santa Barbara Cemetery in Santa Barbara, California.