The head-monkey of the USA seems to be even more stupid than what the rest of the world actually believed. In a recent address to the United Nations, the White House released the wrong copy of George's speech. They gave away the one with the phonetic spellings of countries' and leaders' names.
OK, not everybody is an expert on pronunciation of foreign names, but damn it, most of us are trying. I kinda admire the Chinese students here in Stockholm that are trying to learn swedish, a language that makes heavy use of the "r" sound, which is completely absent in the chinese language. Some of them actually get my name right on the second or third try.
Besides that... When you are a part of a (multi-national) social or professional group, you usually learn to say correctly the names of the most important persons of this group. How many IT workers have never heard (or said) the names of Stroustrup and Dijkstra? Yeah, they are hard as hell to read them when you see them for the first time in your life, but eventually you will hear someone mentioning them. Or you can actually ASK someone to explain it to you.
I, honestly, didn't expect the US president to be unable to remember the name of a certain mister "sar-KO-zee". He is the president of France after all. You know, that big country in "You-rope", with all that wine and cheese. Even if the US aren't interested in wine, France is a nuclear power, has a thriving economy, etc. I mean... if you are the US president, you will eventually have to meet with France's leader. It's not like we 're talking about greek politicians or something...
Ha! I'd like to see him try to pronounce "Xenogiannakopoulou" :D
OK, not everybody is an expert on pronunciation of foreign names, but damn it, most of us are trying. I kinda admire the Chinese students here in Stockholm that are trying to learn swedish, a language that makes heavy use of the "r" sound, which is completely absent in the chinese language. Some of them actually get my name right on the second or third try.
Besides that... When you are a part of a (multi-national) social or professional group, you usually learn to say correctly the names of the most important persons of this group. How many IT workers have never heard (or said) the names of Stroustrup and Dijkstra? Yeah, they are hard as hell to read them when you see them for the first time in your life, but eventually you will hear someone mentioning them. Or you can actually ASK someone to explain it to you.
I, honestly, didn't expect the US president to be unable to remember the name of a certain mister "sar-KO-zee". He is the president of France after all. You know, that big country in "You-rope", with all that wine and cheese. Even if the US aren't interested in wine, France is a nuclear power, has a thriving economy, etc. I mean... if you are the US president, you will eventually have to meet with France's leader. It's not like we 're talking about greek politicians or something...
Ha! I'd like to see him try to pronounce "Xenogiannakopoulou" :D
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given the current political situiation in Greece, I think it's unclear weather he will ever have to pronounce her name. Also since US presidents last for a max of 8 years, he'll probably be gone by the time she's given a chance to participate in the leading party.
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