[Update]: The APS provided me with a high quality image of their announcement. I've added it to this post so that you can read it in its high quality hotness.
Lately I have been reading some application materials and I thought, in honor of some of the personal statements I've read, I would begin this entry with a quotation. This, from the great William Shakespeare:
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet
But I've a whole hot, fresh "Ask Dr. Isis" for you on personal statement writing for later on after mama gets this manuscript written. In the mean time, let's keep our eye on the prize.
Figure 1: Dearest student, please for the love of Pete, do not include a quote from Shakespeare at the top of your CV and then send it to Dr. Isis for her opinion. Being a poet is not listed as requirement for the industrial job you're applying for. But, seriously, eye on the prize, Isis.
What's in a name, indeed? A lot. A name is given to us by our parents, ties us to our family, and often reflects our ethnic and culture heritage. Some of our names have meanings that are important to us, but that may not translate between languages. As a graduate student I worked in a department were a very large proportion of the student population was comprised of non-American, non-native English speaking students. Many of them had adopted Anglicized names, presumably because people could not be bothered to learn to pronounce or spell their real names. That always made me sad.
So, I am pleased to see that my favorite academic society appreciates the importance of people's names. I scanned this image is from the February edition of The Physiologist:
Education & Careers
Life Science
Comments
Woohoo for the APS indeed!
Posted by: Academic | March 27, 2009 10:33 AM
So when is pubmed gonna catch on and let me search for the correct "Li Wang" by using characters? 'Cause the high frequency of repeated names + the homophones being transliterated as the same name is starting to drive me batty.
Posted by: becca | March 27, 2009 11:37 AM
Dear Isis,
As a beginning, young highschool teacher, during a visit with my parents, I brought with me a stack of my students' math tests I just finished grading. My father browsed through them and brought my attention to a comment I wrote on the test of one of the students whose last name meant 'wisdom'. My comment was poking fun at the student not doing justice to his namesake. I remember my father explaining to me that people do not choose their names, neither first nor last, and that I should never make fun of people names. This one particular incident stayed with me throughout my career.
Why all this long introduction? I must sadly remind you that you are guilty of continuously demeaning my name, along with your dear friend, CPP (Rivlington, Sol-poo, Fucklington, etc). Of course, we have our differences and our, at times, heated exchanges, however, name, gender, skin color, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc, should never be items to poke fun at.
Now, you could argue that my name is a pseudonym and thus making fun of it is OK. No, it is not, because the name Solomon is my middle name and Rivlin is my paternal grandmother maiden name.
Consequently, you should follow your own explanation ("A name is given to us by our parents, ties us to our family, and often reflects our ethnic and culture heritage. Some of our names have meanings that are important to us, but that may not translate between languages.") and not use one's name to demean him/her or to poke fun at.
Posted by: S. Rivlin | March 27, 2009 12:48 PM
Sol, you're right. You've said that "S. Rivlin" is a pseudonym and I figured that it was something that you had made up, not an extension of your family name. But, now that you've explained its significance I apologize and I won't use it to poke fun at you again.
Not that I won't poke fun at you when you've got it coming, though.
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | March 27, 2009 12:57 PM
Isis, apology accepted and please, never stop poking fun at me when I've got it coming. ;)
Posted by: S. Rivlin | March 27, 2009 1:03 PM
that is so awesome! I know many Indians and Chinese folk who have changed names out of frustration. Monkey is named after his great-great-grandfather, so his name is very very punjabi. Many colleagues were surprised that we didn't give him a Canadian name to make is life easier (he will now deal with the whole mispronunciation issue). What is so hard about trying to learn someone's name?
Posted by: ScientistMother | March 27, 2009 2:16 PM
That is so cool! About once a month or so our lab gets a language lesson (complete with appropriate characters) from one of the non-native English speakers in the lab.
I think it's great that they're allowing native characters - they mean so much more than the English translation allows.
It makes me wish that there were characters for my name. :(
Posted by: ambivalent academic | March 27, 2009 3:46 PM
Neato! I always felt very strongly that everyone in the lab learn the "real" pronunciation of Coworker's name.... especially of Coworker can learn to pronounce MY name (Reaction can be quite the tongue-twister).
Posted by: unbalanced reaction | March 27, 2009 10:41 PM
Just yesterday I did a post on the ResearcherID article in Science this week. Several groups are trying to get people to register for unique IDs to avoid name variation issues. So I'm using my ID here, linked to the post that has the Science article if you are interested. :)
Posted by: A-5661-2009 | March 28, 2009 3:26 PM
The pronunciation game even hits some of us of European extraction. . .my last name ends in a non-silent "e", which is constantly ignored by many folks. If the letter wasn't meant to be pronounced, it wouldn't be at the end of the name! On the plus side, it's a good way to screen for telemarketers. . .
In all seriousness, though, it is great to see some journals making steps forward to avoid bad or redundant transliterations. Next, it would be great to see journals standardize the transliterated name order for some of my Chinese colleagues!
Posted by: Andy | March 30, 2009 1:25 AM
Ah, names. I have a bit of a sore spot on this subject, because my name (yes, Mara is my real name) is constantly mispronounced (it's like marathon or maraschino, thankyewverymuch) and misspelled. In fact, I will answer to Mary, Marla, Marcia, Maria...pretty much any name beginning with "Mar," because I've given up on people getting my name right.
I'm completely in sympathy with folks whose names use another alphabet, because I can only imagine how their names are butchered on a regular basis, and I know how frustrating that is. Hooray for the APS for making this small but significant gesture!
On a related subject, my husband and I didn't want our kids to have "Hebrew" names and "English" names. (For example, my Hebrew name is Miriam, even though Mara is a Hebrew word. Why? Hell if I know.) So our poor daughter is named Yael (two syllables, not pronounced like the college) and our son is Barak. We figure at least our son will benefit from his name being pronounced like the president, so he has a fighting chance of people saying it right.
And since I already have a hella long comment, I'll tell the story of the time I answered my in-law's phone and a telemarketer asked for "Robbie [husband's last name]." I informed him there was no Robbie anywhere in the family and hung up. When I told the story to my husband, he laughed and reminded me that his father is a...rabbi. ::headdesk::
Posted by: Mara | March 30, 2009 10:35 AM