Putin

[Laurence Urdang]

Though scarcely an issue for the ADS, it occurs to me that you might be amused by the following:
  The pronunciation of President Putin's surname in French would normally be identical in pronunciation with that of putain 'prostitute,' so, some months ago I queried some French friends about it and was informed that to avoid any hint of unfriendliness, his name in French is pronounced "poo-TEEN."
  L. Urdang
  P.S. My spelling checker catches my perennially mistyped "pronunication," but it cannot distinguish "striked" from "struck" or "strikes." Can we abandon the trivia now?

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