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South Korean President Park Geun-hye, right, shakes hands with French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault before their meeting at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, July 25, 2013. Ayrault arrived in Seoul Thursday for a day-long visit to boost bilateral cooperation. (AP Photo)
Visiting French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault presented South Korean media with a novel headache today: how to transcribe his name.
The daily Chosun Ilbo, the country's widest-circulation newspaper, chose Korean script that signifies "erotic" while Yonhap news agency also used a translation that means "difficulty".
The French embassy in Seoul, which issued a statement on the arrival of the head of the French government in Korean, chose a neutral translation by omitting the letter "r".
Last year Ayrault left Arabic-language media in a similar, though slightly more embarrassing, quandary.
Transcribed into Arabic from the French pronunciation of his name, "Ayrault" refers in several Arabic dialects to the male sexual organ.