When President Joe Biden met with leaders from Ireland ahead of St. Patrick’s Day, he reportedly took along a cheat sheet to make sure he pronounced names correctly.
According to Metro UK, the U.S. president, “who is openly proud of his Irish roots,” was spotted with a notecard featuring photos of Irish leaders and pronunciation directions. Per the outlet, he did manage to pronounce the Gaelic word “Taoiseach” (the title for the Republic of Ireland’s prime ministers) as “tee-sock” as he greeted Taiseach Leo Varadkar.
“Today is an important period, an important milestone: nearly 100 years of diplomatic relations, Taoiseach, and (inaudible) 100 years of Ireland and the United States,” said Biden.
Last month, Axios reported that Biden’s reliance on notecards at closed-door fundraisers was raising concerns among some donors. Polls have shown that voters have concerns about the 81-year-old president’s age as he campaigns for a second term as Commander-in-Chief. However, he recently delivered a successful State of the Union speech.
“Biden advisers say the president is given notecards only for very detailed and technical questions, and say he frequently does spontaneous Q&As,” Axios reported. It also noted that “most recent presidents, including Trump, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Barack Obama – have carried crib notes, or used teleprompters, to help guide them through various public events and meetings.”
For example, Trump’s “crib sheet” for a discussion with survivors of school shootings following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas massacre in 2018 went viral, The Week reported.
For many people, the pronunciation of Gaelic names and terms can also be challenging.
“Irish names can be notoriously difficult for English speakers to read and pronounce,” explained the Irish Star. “That’s because the Irish language follows a different orthography (a set of rules or conventions in a language) than English does.”
In a report this week, CNN said “to the untrained eye, Irish names can seem like a daunting ambush of rogue consonants and surprise vowels,” and offered some tips on pronouncing names, using celebrity examples. These included recent best actor Oscar winner Cillian Murphy and Oscar-nominated actress Saoirse Ronan, who also explained how to pronounce her name in this Wired video featuring Margot Robbie.
Metro UK said that Biden made it through the meeting with Irish leaders without pronunciation mistakes, so the cheat sheet must have been good.