Wednesday, March 17, 2010

The Name Chronicles

"What's in a name?", William Shakespeare once wrote, "that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." 
He should probably have spoken to one Akanksha(not Akansha not Akaanksha) though, before writing that one. 
Leave the girl alone and we have one of the most prevalent complaints of today's society. Especially in the countries which have specifically weird names that sound atrocious when pronounced wrong.
Take mine for example, Shibesh is pretty much decent-sounding but get me an imbecile and you'll know what's so atrocious about the pronunciation. ( Sibes )
Mine is still not as objectionable as a guy named Tomasz Kuzszczak might rightly object. (If you're wondering who that is, try checking out the Polish football team)
But if we set the weirdly named people aside, we get a lot of easy-named people who have a few problems of their own.
I remember a guy named Bangor, (for all you perverts out there no his first name wasn't Dick!) who faced a lot of problems here in India and went through all the variations that his name can probably go through.(From Bang-Oar to Bang-oor to Baang-Oar)
Moving on from people, we get to places with names which sound like poetry gone wrong when we try to pronounce them.
However hard it may to believe, there is actually a place in Wales called Pontrhydfendigaid. God bless its people!
Even the relatively easy ones like Loughborough get pronounced like Lurgerburger, so there isn't really a "weird-name" parameter that makes pronouncing difficult.
It's us who think it'll be offending to the other if we simply ask them how to say their names.
So, people, next time you meet me and i tell you my name, just ask me how it's pronounced before you try the same.
Ciao!!