Who is “Yoshiko” Noda? (Foreign Newspapers Misspell Japanese Prime Minister’s First Name)
Japan has a new Prime Minister, but it seems that quite a few English language newspapers are confused about the correct spelling of Yoshihiko Noda’s first name:
They have left out the “hi” in “Yoshihiko.” The resulting “Yoshiko” is a common first name for women in Japan.
A few of the papers, such as the Financial Times and the Australian, have actually managed to discover their errors and correct the spelling in their articles. The Christian Science Monitor and Asia Sentinel still have “Yoshiko” Noda in their articles.
The errors have also been shown on Japanese TV. About three minutes and twenty seconds into this video clip, we can hear an American journalist asking an Obama Administration spokesperson to comment on the election of “Yoshiko” Noda. The Japanese TV network provides a subtitles that fail to include the journalist’s error.
Why so many errors? It could be that some of these news organizations employ journalists who are unfamiliar with Japanese names. Perhaps a few of them actually knew the correct spelling of Noda’s first name, but were too rushed to go back and check what they’d written. After all, it’s just Japan: they’ll be getting another Prime Minister within a year anyway, so who cares if they misspell the name of this guy….right?
A list of news articles & tweets about “Yoshiko” Noda:
- Asia Sentinel (Todd Crowell)
- The Australian (Rick Wallace)
- The Christian Science Monitor (Gavin Blair)
- CNN (Saeed Ahmed)
- The Financial Times
- NASDAQ ( Kathy Lien of FX360.com and GFT)
- The Wall Street Journal (George Nishiyama and Hiroyuki Kachi)
- Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
- Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
