輝瑞-拜恩泰科新冠疫苗日前正式獲批上市，它的商品名Comirnaty也進(jìn)入了大眾的視野。這個(gè)詞要怎么發(fā)音呢？為什么藥名都這么怪？其實(shí)這是有原因的。

The Food and Drug Administration issued full authorization Monday for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Soon, millions of Americans will face a confusing, difficult task: How in the heck do you pronounce Comirnaty?

美國食品藥物管理局本周一（8月23日）正式批準(zhǔn)輝瑞-拜恩泰科新冠疫苗上市。很快，數(shù)百萬美國人將面臨一個(gè)令人困惑的難題：Comirnaty這個(gè)詞到底要怎么發(fā)音呢？

That's the brand name for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. It's pronounced "co-MER-na-tee" according to Scott Piergrossi, president of creative for the Brand Institute, which crafted the name.

Comirnaty（中文名稱為復(fù)必泰）是輝瑞--拜恩泰科新冠疫苗的商品名。據(jù)品牌研究所創(chuàng)意總監(jiān)斯科特·皮爾格羅西介紹，這個(gè)詞的讀音是“co-MER-na-tee”。

It's a little easier to say than BNT162b2, the research name of the vaccine while it was first being studied, but not much.

這比該疫苗在最初研究階段使用的名稱BNT162b2發(fā)音更容易一點(diǎn)，但是也好不到哪去。

Why Comirnaty?

為什么要采用Comirnaty這個(gè)名稱呢？

According to the companies, it "represents a combination of the terms COVID-19, mRNA, community, and immunity."

據(jù)這兩家公司稱，Comirnaty一詞“綜合了新型冠狀病毒肺炎的正式名稱COVID-19、信使核糖核酸mRNA、群體community和免疫力immunity這幾個(gè)詞”。

我們來分解說明一下：

co = COVID-19 (which in turn stands for COronaVIrus Disease 2019, the year it was discovered)

前兩個(gè)字母co代表COVID-19，即新型冠狀病毒肺炎2019，2019年是新冠病毒被發(fā)現(xiàn)的年份。

mirna = mRNA, the snippets of genetic code that tell cells to build proteins. In this case, the proteins on the COVID-19 spike protein

中間的mirna 指代的是mRNA，讓細(xì)胞合成蛋白質(zhì)的遺傳密碼片段，在這里蛋白質(zhì)指的是新冠病毒纖突蛋白。

ty = some combination of community and immunity.

結(jié)尾處的ty就是community（群體）和immunity（免疫力）的組合

"That's what I love about Comirnaty, it hits so many of the key points we were trying to convey," Piergrossi said.

皮爾格羅西說：“這就是我喜歡Comirnaty這個(gè)詞的原因，它包含了我們想傳達(dá)的許多要點(diǎn)。”

If you don't like Comirnaty, and BNT162b2 doesn't trip off your tongue, you can always try tozinameran.

如果你不喜歡Comirnaty，又覺得BNT162b2太難念，你也可以試試tozinameran這個(gè)詞。

Yeah, we thought not.

還是算了吧。這也夠拗口的。

But in case you want to, that one's pronounced "toe-zuh-NAH-mer-an."

萬一你對(duì)tozinameran感興趣，這里可以告訴你，它的發(fā)音是“toe-zuh-NAH-mer-an”。

That's the generic name for Comirnaty. Like all pharmaceutical generic names overseen by the World Health Organization, it had to be crafted according to strict nomenclature rules.

Tozinameran是Comirnaty的通用名稱。和世界衛(wèi)生組織監(jiān)管的其他所有藥品通用名稱一樣，這款疫苗必須按照嚴(yán)格的命名法來命名。

Generic drug or vaccine names come in two parts. The first part is something the drug company gets to make up, in this case "tozina."

藥物或疫苗的通用名稱分為兩部分。第一部分是制藥公司起的名字，在本詞中指的是tozina這部分。

"It's got to be a 'blank canvas,'" Piergrossi said. "WHO requests that the prefix be meaningless. It can't be a marketing tool."

皮爾格羅西說：“這部分必須是‘空白畫布’。世衛(wèi)組織要求前綴不能有意義，不能作為營銷工具?！?/p>

The suffix "meran" is used for mRNA vaccines, just as "caine" is the suffix for local anesthetics and "ast" is for anti-asthma drugs.

后綴meran 指代的是mRNA疫苗，類似的還有，地方麻醉藥名會(huì)用caine作為后綴，而ast是抗哮喘藥物名的后綴。

The Brand Institute began working on names for the vaccine in April 2020, when its German office contacted BioNTech, which is based there. (BioNTech is pronounced Bye-ON-tech, not Bye-oh-N-tech.)

2020年4月，品牌研究所德國辦事處聯(lián)系了總部位于德國的拜恩泰科公司，自那以后該研究所就開始思考如何給這一疫苗命名。（BioNTech的發(fā)音是Bye-ON-tech，不是Bye-oh-N-tech）。

Coming up with pharmaceutical names involves lots of money and database searches, Piergrossi said.

皮爾格羅西說：“藥物的命名過程要花很多錢，還要做大量的數(shù)據(jù)庫搜索工作?！?/p>

"We're contending against hundreds of thousands of existing names, and any new brand name has to be dissimilar from everything else in those databases," he said.

他說：“我們是在和現(xiàn)有的無數(shù)名稱對(duì)陣，任何一個(gè)新名稱都必須不同于數(shù)據(jù)庫中的任何現(xiàn)有名稱?！?/p>

There are lots of considerations, including screening for name similarities, intellectual property and internet domain availability.

要考量的因素很多，包括篩查相似的名稱、知識(shí)產(chǎn)權(quán)以及互聯(lián)網(wǎng)域名的可用性。

When a list of finalists is created, a cultural review is done.

在制定出候選名單后，還要進(jìn)行文化審查。

"We do a linguistic screen in over 40 languages to make sure there's nothing offensive or misleading," Piergrossi said. "It's a disaster check, to make sure you're not going to have any embarrassing situations."

皮爾格羅西說：“我們會(huì)在40多種語言中做文化審查，確保這個(gè)詞沒有冒犯性含義或容易產(chǎn)生歧義。這也是‘排雷’檢查，確保這個(gè)詞不會(huì)讓人陷入尷尬的境地。”

More COVID-19 vaccines are in the regulatory pipeline, so more tongue-twister names are coming.

還有更多新冠疫苗正在走審批流程，所以接下來我們還會(huì)接觸到更多拗口的名稱。

The brand name of the Moderna vaccine is slated to be Spikevax, according to Piergrossi. The AstraZeneca vaccine's is Vaxzervia.

據(jù)皮爾格羅西透露，莫德納疫苗的商品名將會(huì)是Spikevax，而阿斯利康疫苗的商品名則是Vaxzervia。

"There is a certain whimsical nature to pharmaceutical names," Piergrossi said.

皮爾格羅西說：“這些藥名總是有點(diǎn)怪怪的。”

英文來源：今日美國

翻譯&編輯：丹妮