The perils of mangling a name | 念错名字的危害 - FT中文网
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The perils of mangling a name
念错名字的危害

Mispronouncing a colleague’s name at work can be hazardous — and not just if it’s the boss
在工作中读错同事的名字会带来危险--而且不仅仅是老板的名字。
How would you pronounce Kristalina Georgieva?
克里斯塔利娜•格奥尔基耶娃(Kristalina Georgieva)这个名字的发音是怎样的?
The first name of the managing director of the IMF is easy enough for English speakers. The second is another matter entirely. 
国际货币基金组织(IMF)的总裁的名字对于讲英语的人来说很容易。而她的姓则完全是另一回事。
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. 
多年来,我听到很多人发音时使用一个或两个软音G,就像measure中的's'的音,例如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.
但是,我刚刚参加了在迪拜举行的 COP28 气候大会,会上经常出现名字这个被读错的情况,我可以向大家报告,这是完全错误的。
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.
它有两个硬G,就像Gyore-gee-ay-vah一样,每当有人发音正确时,这位出生于保加利亚的经济学家都感到非常高兴。
“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.
“我希望人们能正确地读出我的名字,”她在会议期间接受采访时对我的一位同事说。
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.”
为了明确G的发音是硬音,格奥尔基耶娃说她曾试图在每个G后面加上一个U,这样看起来就像是格奥尔基耶娃。但是这引起了很多混淆,她又恢复了原来的写法。“幸运的是,我的名字很容易发音,所以我鼓励大家直接叫我克里斯塔利娜。”
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. 
格奥尔基耶娃否认了她对那些发音不准确的下属持负面看法的传言,作为一个自己名字很难发音的人,我怀疑她已经习惯了对原始名称的各种变体作出回应。
(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.)
(顺便说一下,我的名字Pilita的发音是Pill-EAT-ah,而不是PILL-eat-ah或者像自动语音转录服务喜欢写的那样,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.
然而,格奥尔基耶娃的故事强调了在工作中搞砸名字的危险,不仅仅是当名字的所有者是自己的老板时。
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. 
在COP28上,我主持了一个由演讲嘉宾组成的小组讨论,其中包括备受赞誉的乌干达气候活动家瓦妮莎•纳盖特(Vanessa Nakate),她的姓氏经常被发音为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.
就在麦克风开启之前,我俯身过去问她那是否确实正确。她说:“不,是NAH-kah-tay”,重音在第一个音节上稍微加强。
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.
当麦克风打开时,我得到了这个令人困惑的消息,同时也提醒了我,在名字方面,任何假设都是危险的。
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.
因此,我很高兴收到了来自迪拜COP28主席媒体团队的一封来自Nikkie Shike女士的电子邮件。
Her email signature included something I hadn’t seen before: “Nikkie Shike pronounced: Ni-ki Shi-kay.”
她的电子邮件签名中包含了我以前从未见过的内容:“Nikkie Shike 发音: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.
后来我联系到她时,她说她在爱德曼公关公司工作,该公司为“种族平等事务”(Race Equality Matters)组织做了一个宣传活动,宣传正确使用姓名的重要性,该组织致力于解决工作场所的种族不平等问题。
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.
民意调查显示,在工作中常常出现名字发音错误的情况,这让人感到恼火。因此,该团队建议在电子邮件底部和社交媒体网站(如领英(LinkedIn))上详细说明正确的发音,领英还允许您在个人资料中添加您的名字的录音。
Shike was among a number of Edelman staff who took up the email signature idea, which she says has been very useful.
Shike是爱德曼员工中的一员,她表示采用电子邮件签名的想法非常有用。
“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. 
“我发现自从我使用了这个签名后,我的客户和同事都能正确地称呼我,所以这是一个很好的提示,”Shike说道。Shike的父亲是日本人,母亲是澳大利亚人,最近从墨尔本搬到了布鲁塞尔。
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.
当我在COP28向博茨瓦纳前贸易部长Bogolo Kenewendo提到电子邮件解释的想法时,她立刻看到了好处。考虑到有多少人甚至在非洲都把她的名字搞错,这是有道理的。
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”.
发音为“Bo-HOH-low”,其中的‘hoh’发音类似于西班牙的J音,她仍然记得在美国青少年时期学习芭蕾舞,整整一年,她的老师都叫她“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”.
“我当时没有勇气纠正她,因为我是新来的,”Kenewendo告诉我,她补充说她在COP28上也犯了一个非常严重的名字错误,当时她把法国气候特使是斯蒂芬•克鲁扎特(Stéphane Crouzat)称为“斯蒂芬妮”(Stephanie)。
“He said, ‘It’s Stephane!’” she hooted. “And I said, ‘Well why is there an ‘e’?”
她大笑道:“他说,‘是斯蒂芬!’”我说,‘那为什么有个‘e’呢?’”
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.
这是一个公平的观点。但这也是Kenewendo决定改回Bogolo的原因。Kenewendo曾经用她的中间名Joy,因为它更容易发音。
“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.”
“随着年龄的增长,我意识到我的塞茨瓦纳名字所带来的力量,”她说。“它每天都提醒我,我父母希望我成为什么样的人。”
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