UN Secretary Generals.. the name game

[Grapes]

Word is that Kofi Annan is about to be replaced as Secretary General of the United Nations. His successor will likely be South Korea's Ban Ki-Moon.. thus, the torch to be handled only by people with COMPLETELY FREAKIN WEIRD NAMES has been passed!

Look at this:

Kofi Annan
Ban Ki-Moon
Dag Hammarskjöld
Trygve Halvdan Lie
Javier Pérez de Cuéllar
Sir Gladwyn Jebb
Boutros Boutros-Ghali (classic.. the Secretary General so nice, they named him twice)
And, last, but certainly not least, U Thant.

That was the guy's name! The letter U!

I know these people come from various corners of the world, so their names won't necessarily sound normal to an English speaking individual such as myself. But look at the one guy I left off the list, Kurt Waldheim.. a somewhat foreign name, but nothing that you'd think twice about. Kurt, however, is clearly the exception to the rule.

Is this part of the rules or what?

[Grapes]

I doubt anyone besides me gives a shit about this :-|

[mapleleaf4ever]

I never really noticed until you lined them all up like that.

heh heh that's pretty amusing.

[cubed]

and all this coming from a "MEREDITH"!!!

:P

[decypher]

lol did you steal that from the hour tonight with George?

Because he did the exact same bit. Word for word.

[Grapes]

^ I seriously did not. :-o

and all this coming from a "MEREDITH"!!!

Take it back! Take it baack!!!

You're a real shit disturber these days arentcha Jim?

[decypher]

No seriously turn on CBC channel 3 at 11. A bit into it he starts naming a bunch of the other UN SG's and even says something about Boutros Boutros and his naming being twice because he was so good lol. Not shitting you.

[diva]

LOL. I noticed that too. Boutros is my favourite. You should hear my dad say that name with a Ghanaian accent.

Mr. Annan's Ghanaian. In Ghana, his first name is actually equivalent to common North American names like Michael or John.

What about IOC presidents? They usually have pretty rad names as well!

[Grapes]

Calling a black man "coffee" counts as funny in my books.

The "so nice they named it twice" is a cliched joke..

I promise I had no idea what Strombompouloupolus was up to.

[Grapes]

HEY! George would make a good Secretary General of the UN!

[diva]

It's not pronounced "coffee", though.

lol
i found this link
BBC has a pronounciation unit.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditor...nciation_unit/
A guide to words and names in the news, from Catherine Sangster of the BBC Pronunciation Unit.

"Today's news-related pronunciation is an apparently simple name, often mispronounced: UN secretary-general Kofi Annan.

The pronunciation is KOH-fi AN-an, with the stress on the first syllable of the surname. We have the best possible source for this pronunciation; it is how he said his name himself during his swearing-in ceremony in 1996."

They tell you how to pronounce Olmert's first name on there too. Nifty!

It would be really rad if one could subscribe to, and receive, a "mispronounced name of the day" email.

[prozac]

Boutros Boutros-Ghali is my dad's favorite...my dad follows everything he does only because he's fascinated with the name.

As for Kofi, apparently I tried to convince my mom to name my little brother Kofi. Don't know where, but as a 4-year-old I must have absorbed it somewhere.