辉瑞-拜恩泰科新冠疫苗日前正式获批上市，它的商品名Comirnaty也进入了大众的视野。这个词要怎么发音呢？为什么药名都这么怪？其实这是有原因的。The logo for Comirnaty (Credit: Pfizer)美国食品药物管理局本周一（8月23日）正式批准辉瑞-拜恩泰科新冠疫苗上市。很快，数百万美国人将面临一个令人困惑的难题：Comirnaty这个词到底要怎么发音呢？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?Comirnaty（中文名称为复必泰）是辉瑞--拜恩泰科新冠疫苗的商品名。据品牌研究所创意总监斯科特·皮尔格罗西介绍，这个词的读音是“co-MER-na-tee”。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.这比该疫苗在最初研究阶段使用的名称BNT162b2发音更容易一点，但是也好不到哪去。It's a little easier to say than BNT162b2, the research name of the vaccine while it was first being studied, but not much.为什么要采用Comirnaty这个名称呢？Why Comirnaty?据这两家公司称，Comirnaty一词“综合了新型冠状病毒肺炎的正式名称COVID-19、信使核糖核酸mRNA、群体community和免疫力immunity这几个词”。According to the companies, it "represents a combination of the terms COVID-19, mRNA, community, and immunity."我们来分解说明一下：co = COVID-19 (which in turn stands for COronaVIrus Disease 2019, the year it was discovered)前两个字母co代表COVID-19，即新型冠状病毒肺炎2019，2019年是新冠病毒被发现的年份。mirna = mRNA, the snippets of genetic code that tell cells to build proteins. In this case, the proteins on the COVID-19 spike protein中间的mirna 指代的是mRNA，让细胞合成蛋白质的遗传密码片段，在这里蛋白质指的是新冠病毒纤突蛋白。ty = some combination of community and immunity.结尾处的ty就是community（群体）和immunity（免疫力）的组合Photo: Reuters皮尔格罗西说：“这就是我喜欢Comirnaty这个词的原因，它包含了我们想传达的许多要点。”"That's what I love about Comirnaty, it hits so many of the key points we were trying to convey," Piergrossi said.如果你不喜欢Comirnaty，又觉得BNT162b2太难念，你也可以试试tozinameran这个词。If you don't like Comirnaty, and BNT162b2 doesn't trip off your tongue, you can always try tozinameran.还是算了吧。这也够拗口的。Yeah, we thought not.万一你对tozinameran感兴趣，这里可以告诉你，它的发音是“toe-zuh-NAH-mer-an”。But in case you want to, that one's pronounced "toe-zuh-NAH-mer-an."Tozinameran是Comirnaty的通用名称。和世界卫生组织监管的其他所有药品通用名称一样，这款疫苗必须按照严格的命名法来命名。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.药物或疫苗的通用名称分为两部分。第一部分是制药公司起的名字，在本词中指的是tozina这部分。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."皮尔格罗西说：“这部分必须是‘空白画布’。世卫组织要求前缀不能有意义，不能作为营销工具。”"It's got to be a 'blank canvas,'" Piergrossi said. "WHO requests that the prefix be meaningless. It can't be a marketing tool."后缀meran 指代的是mRNA疫苗，类似的还有，地方麻醉药名会用caine作为后缀，而ast是抗哮喘药物名的后缀。The suffix "meran" is used for mRNA vaccines, just as "caine" is the suffix for local anesthetics and "ast" is for anti-asthma drugs.2020年4月，品牌研究所德国办事处联系了总部位于德国的拜恩泰科公司，自那以后该研究所就开始思考如何给这一疫苗命名。（BioNTech的发音是Bye-ON-tech，不是Bye-oh-N-tech）。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.)皮尔格罗西说：“药物的命名过程要花很多钱，还要做大量的数据库搜索工作。”Coming up with pharmaceutical names involves lots of money and database searches, Piergrossi said.他说：“我们是在和现有的无数名称对阵，任何一个新名称都必须不同于数据库中的任何现有名称。”"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.要考量的因素很多，包括筛查相似的名称、知识产权以及互联网域名的可用性。There are lots of considerations, including screening for name similarities, intellectual property and internet domain availability.在制定出候选名单后，还要进行文化审查。When a list of finalists is created, a cultural review is done.皮尔格罗西说：“我们会在40多种语言中做文化审查，确保这个词没有冒犯性含义或容易产生歧义。这也是‘排雷’检查，确保这个词不会让人陷入尴尬的境地。”"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."还有更多新冠疫苗正在走审批流程，所以接下来我们还会接触到更多拗口的名称。More COVID-19 vaccines are in the regulatory pipeline, so more tongue-twister names are coming.据皮尔格罗西透露，莫德纳疫苗的商品名将会是Spikevax，而阿斯利康疫苗的商品名则是Vaxzervia。The brand name of the Moderna vaccine is slated to be Spikevax, according to Piergrossi. The AstraZeneca vaccine's is Vaxzervia.皮尔格罗西说：“这些药名总是有点怪怪的。”"There is a certain whimsical nature to pharmaceutical names," Piergrossi said.