Sunday, September 13, 2026

Foreign names

At SEATAC I was picking up my fish tacos but the woman who was calling out my name and making sure they got to the right person was struggling to pronounce my name. She was a newcomer to our fair land, her hair restrained by a hijab and I thought "OK, maybe for a native Arabic speaker (most likely) some of the consonant clusters in 'Clark' may be challenging." It was something I had never really pondered. So when she handed me my bag I had a quick look at how my name was spelled.


Mystery solved! Speakers of many languages might find that spelling rough to wrap their tongue around. It looks straight out of Game of Thrones.


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