The perils of mangling a name - FT中文网
登录×
电子邮件/用户名
密码
记住我
请输入邮箱和密码进行绑定操作:
请输入手机号码,通过短信验证(目前仅支持中国大陆地区的手机号):
请您阅读我们的用户注册协议隐私权保护政策,点击下方按钮即视为您接受。
FT商学院

The perils of mangling a name

Mispronouncing a colleague’s name at work can be hazardous — and not just if it’s the boss
00:00

How would you pronounce Kristalina Georgieva?

The first name of the managing director of the IMF is easy enough for English speakers. The second is another matter entirely.

For years, I have heard people pronounce it with one and often two soft Gs, like the sound of the ‘s’ in measure, as in Zhore-zhee-ay-vah.

But having just been to the COP28 climate conference in Dubai, where name mangling was a constant menace, I can report this is completely wrong.

It has two hard G’s, as in Gyore-gee-ay-vah, and the Bulgarian-born economist is very pleased whenever anyone gets it right.

“I would like people to pronounce my name correctly,” she told one of my colleagues who checked on the matter in an interview with her during the conference.

In an effort to make it clear the Gs were hard, Georgieva said she once tried to spell it with a U after each G, so it looked like Gueorguieva. But this caused so much confusion she reverted to the original. “Luckily my first name is very easy to pronounce, so I encourage people to just call me Kristalina. ”

Georgieva denied rumours that she took a dim view of underlings who mauled the pronunciation and, as the bearer of a tricky name myself, I suspect she is very used to answering to all sorts of permutations of the original.

For the record, my name is pronounced Pill-EAT-ah, as opposed to PILL-eat-ah or, as automated voice transcription services are fond of writing, Polluter.

Still, Georgieva’s story underlines the hazards of mucking up names at work, and not just if the owner of the name is one’s boss.

At COP28, I moderated a panel of speakers that included the acclaimed Ugandan climate activist, Vanessa Nakate, whose second name is constantly pronounced Nah-KAH-tay.

Just before the microphones went live, I leaned over and asked her if that was definitely correct. No, she said, “it’s NAH-kah-tay”, with a slight emphasis on the first syllable.

This was a flummoxing piece of news to receive as the microphones switched on, and a reminder of the perils of assuming anything when it comes to names.

For this reason I was pleased to receive an email from a woman in the COP28 president’s media team in Dubai named Nikkie Shike.

Her email signature included something I hadn’t seen before: “Nikkie Shike pronounced: Ni-ki Shi-kay. ”

When I caught up with her later, she said she works for the PR firm Edelman, which had done a campaign on the importance of getting names right for Race Equality Matters, a group that tackles racial inequalities in the workplace.

Polling shows name botching is common at work, and irksome, so the group suggested spelling out the right pronunciation on email footers and social media sites such as LinkedIn, which lets you add a recording of your name on your profile.

Shike was among a number of Edelman staff who took up the email signature idea, which she says has been very useful.

“I’ve found that since I’ve used the signature, my clients get it right, my colleagues get it right, so it’s been a nice prompt,” said Shike, who has a Japanese father, an Australian mother and recently moved from Melbourne to Brussels.

When I mentioned the email explanation idea to another economist at COP28, Bogolo Kenewendo, Botswana’s former trade minister, she immediately saw the benefits. That makes sense considering how many people get her name wrong, even in Africa.

It’s pronounced “Bo-HOH-low,” with a ‘hoh’ that “sounds like a Spanish J”, and she still remembers studying ballet as a teenager in the US where, for an entire year, her teacher called her “Bungalow”.

“I didn’t have the guts to correct her because I was new,” Kenewendo told me, adding that she had done a spectacular bit of name-butchering herself at COP28, when she referred to French climate envoy, Stéphane Crouzat, as “Stephanie”.

“He said, ‘It’s Stephane! she hooted. “And I said, ‘Well why is there an ‘e’? ”

That’s a fair point. But so is the reason that Kenewendo, who used to go by her middle name Joy because it was easier to pronounce, decided to switch back to Bogolo.

“As I got older I realised the power that comes with my Setswana name,” she said. “It’s a daily reminder of who my parents hoped I would be. ”

版权声明:本文版权归FT中文网所有,未经允许任何单位或个人不得转载,复制或以任何其他方式使用本文全部或部分,侵权必究。

汽车行业高管担心特朗普关税的下一个目标是什么

高管们担心,特朗普可能对汽车零部件征税。

为什么欧洲无法只依靠法国的核保护伞

马克龙已邀请其他欧洲领导人讨论是否能够以及如何利用法国的核武库来威慑俄罗斯未来的侵略。

伦敦在“打击犯罪的技术竞赛”中扩展闭路电视网络

随着警方努力应对街头犯罪激增,伦敦各区议会急于配备人工智能摄像头。

Lex专栏:风险无法浇灭黄金投资者的热情

黄金是抵御地缘政治动荡、通货膨胀和低利率的终极减震器。

能源账单飙升令阿尔巴尼斯在澳大选中陷入被动

生活成本担忧加剧,澳大利亚反对党指责政府的可再生能源政策导致价格上涨。

Lex专栏:美国屋顶太阳能业务前景黯淡

更长的高利率和敌视清洁能源的总统是一个有毒的组合。
设置字号×
最小
较小
默认
较大
最大
分享×