Ghoti?

Another day, another cautionary tale. And yes, I'm still dealing with names.

Most of my clients write to people in other countries. Today, I was editing a letter of introduction that my client David was sending to his associate, William, in the United States. In the letter, he was offering to set up a meeting between William and a man named Chaim.

Given that William is an American, I was pretty confident that he would try to pronounce the name Chaim in the same way one would pronounce the English word "chain" but with an "m" on the end. Bad choice! Chaim is actually a transliteration of a Hebrew name and in this case the transliteration needs some explanation... in fact, a whole lot of explanation.

Ch should be pronounced as a soft gutteral. It's a sound that doesn't exist in English.
a should be pronounced as "u" in the word "up."
i should be pronounced as "ee" in "wee."
m should be pronounced as "m."
There is also a "y" sound as in "yellow" between the "a" and the "i" that happens because there are two distinct vowel sounds one after the other.

So, in the end "Chaim" is pronounced more like "Hahyim."

I'm not suggesting that when faced with a similar situation that you put a whole pronunciation guide into your letter. We didn't. But I'm all for saving people from embarrassment if at all possible. In this case, we wrote:

"William, just a word of advice. Chaim is not pronounced the way it's written. I suggest you ask him how to say his name as soon as you meet. He'll set you straight."

And just for fun, did you know that "ghoti" is pronounced fish?

gh as in cough
o as in women
ti as in nation

That little gem has long been attributed to George Bernard Shaw!

By the way, my name, Rochelle, is pronounced:

R as in rose
o as in could
ch as in machine
ell as in spell
e is silent