In English, we see the letter i followed by n, and we're in: with our tongues pressed against our palates, we find plenty of room at the inn. But in French, the sound represented by in is pronounced nasally, at the back of the throat, and comes out somewhat like anh. English does not have a sound quite like it, except for a kind of derisive snort that often precedes geddoutahere.

Now we come to the reason that French is known as the language of diplomacy. In France's official documents, as well as uniformly in the French press, Vladimir Putin's last name is spelled Poutine. As a natural result, it is pronounced poo-TEEN, rhyming with our "routine." The French undoubtedly know that is not the way he or his compatriots, or even President Bush looking into his soul, pronounce Putin's name. (To head off a torrent of e-mail from Quebec, let me acknowledge that poutine is also French-Canadian comfort food: fried potatoes suffused in cheese and dollops of salty gravy.)

Why the error in transliteration? Official French sources tell me that because the sound that we write as in has no place in French pronunciation, an e has been added to make the sound more amenable to the French tongue, and that's all there is to it. They note -- somewhat stiffly, anticipating the direction of my inquiry -- that they have added a vowel to other names for this purpose. But other, more conspiratorial linguists suggest that the spelling of Putin in English would be pronounced as putain in French -- that is, sounding close to pew-TANH.

Putain, in French, means "prostitute; whore," or in current correctese, "sexual-services provider." According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is the probable source, slightly corrupted, of the U.S. slang term poontang, a derogation of women as a means of sexual gratification. Hence, the rejection of the English spelling of Putin and the switch to Poutine, pronounced poo-TEEN. Small wonder that French arbiters of usage and pronunciation -- perhaps out of commendable delicacy, in the interest of the avoidance of offense and the leers of pundits -- have embraced phony phonetics, unanimously choosing to mispronounce the name of the president of Russia.

ARISE, TRANSLITERATI

In digging up this lecherous speculation, I tripped over a matter of concern to those seriously interested in global communication. For years, the transliterati at the Library of Congress, the British Museum, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names and other scholarly institutions have been breaking their heads over ways to bring order to the somewhat slapdash way we express sounds in different languages. Meanwhile, acting unilaterally, the Russian government has worked out its own plan for handling Russian names on its passports to make life simpler for immigration officials of other nations.