Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz

 Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz is not the only Polish name that can cause foreigners difficulty.

When presented with a Polish name for the first time, your average anglophone will feel a little dizzy, seemingly caught in a vortex of consonants.  Their brain screaming ABORT!  ABORT!  Or at best they will make an attempt that sounds closer to the noise of a dying wasp than to the actual name.

The most hazardous stage is just beyond total ignorance, when a little bit of knowledge really is a dangerous thing, where the Dunning-Kruger effect comes into play and we soon discover that even the simplest of names can land us in trouble.

Faced with the seemingly simple surname of Pycz and confident in the knowledge that cz is pronounced like the English ch, I proceeded to pronounce the name as picz.  Which is a very different word indeed.  Nobody wants to be addressed as Mrs.Twat.

I know another Englishman who was brimming with confidence in the knowledge that S and Z make a SH sound, or was it C and Z... ah well, probably both, here goes nothing...

The result was that Mr. Szewczak, was addressed as Mr. Siusiak.  Mr. Szewczak was unaccustomed to being greeted as Mr. Pee-pee and was not amused.

I have not made an embarrassing error in a while now.  Does that mean I am making progress or does it mean a truly monumental gaff is just around the corner?  Time will tell...