Anyone with a name even slightly more complex than “Brown” or “Smith” intimately knows the struggle of having their name absolutely butchered everywhere they go, but you’d think for major events like a graduation ceremony, the announcer would practice pronouncing the names beforehand, or at least check to see how they’re actually recited. But sadly, for at least one recent graduation ceremony, that wasn’t the case.
For many nursing students graduating from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, the reward for their years of hard work was to have their names thoroughly mangled as they accepted their diplomas. Confusingly, even names as simple as “Thomas Michael” appeared to throw the announcer for a loop — her first attempt was “Ta-mul-may” before Thomas corrected her, letting her know that his incredibly common name was pronounced like “Tomm-ass” and not whatever it was she said. What makes the flub even more confusing is that the student has the same name as the dude the university is named for. Has she never heard the school’s name said aloud before?
And it only got worse from there. For Sarah Virginia Brennan, the announcer said, “Sigh-eer Oo-voon-jean-june Bree-nun,” and for Molly Elizabeth Camp, she said “Mah-lee-nuh Zo-beth Cahmp.” Brennan told The Washington Post, “I didn’t process how poorly she could do mine,” while other students crossing the stage looked bewildered and upset.
Clips of the ceremony went viral, drawing comparisons to the famous Key & Peele Substitute Teacher sketch and even getting a mention on The Tonight Show, with host Jimmy Fallon cracking jokes about it in his monologue.
The school has issued multiple apologies, and both the school and the announcer explained that the mishap occurred because phonetic spellings of the students’ names were included on the announcer’s cards. For Sarah Virginia Brennan, the card explained that her name should be pronounced S’AIR-uh vuhr-JIHN-yuh BREH-nuhn, which, it should be stressed, is not what the announcer said. The announcer acknowledged as much during the ceremony, adding, “I would have been better just reading from the book. My apologies, graduates,” before someone else took over for her.
Online commenters felt bad for the students who had their big day overshadowed by this incident, but most were primarily confused as to why anybody would need phonetic pronunciations for names like Thomas and Sarah in the first place or why pronunciations weren’t rehearsed beforehand.
Hopefully next time they can employ someone who has met human beings with names before.
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