IOWOFNI

An Arab client entrusts a number of young men to your care for training. But, it is not always easy to determine the names of your trainees. Every Arab has three names: a first name, a patronymic (father’s name) and a surname (often related to a tribal connexion).

We had a trainee whose first name was Issa (Believe it or not, that is the Arab equivalent of Jesus). His patronymic was Abdullah. His surname/tribal name was Ettwager.

Faxes and telexes flowed back and forth, and he was constantly referred to by any one of his three names. So, for our own purposes, we named him IOWOFNI, which stood for “Issa, or whatever his fucking name is”.

One day, the Chairman of the company called us in to resolve a problem: he could not invoice for one trainee, because, he told us, he had no record of a trainee called Iowofni.

Days like that, I really loved my job.