The routine butchering of names by various species that have trouble with minor inflections in other languages which inevitably results in silly nicknames - T'reka > Trekker, for instance, or to borrow from another author, Usze > Uzi and N'tho > Nitro -- Gallifreya
Names are important. Across the Gallactic Alliance, all cogniscent beings had a string of sounds or signals that meant 'this is me'. And some... could get quite picky about it.
"Ra-el," said Rael.
"Rail," said the human.
"Ra-el," said Rael.
"Ray L?"
"Ra-el..." he could go on doing this all day, if he had to. And he would certainly make sure that the human would stop being lazy before the end of the day.
"I can't do it," pleaded the human.
"Yes, you can. Your species is perfectly capable of manufacturing the sounds. It's hardly a tongue-twister. You nearly have it. Rah... ell..."
"Raffle..."
"Slow it down. You're not trying for best-fit words. You are respecting a cogniscent's name."
The delegate from Libertaria sighed. "It still sounds like something ungodly."
"Technically, that's correct. In that I was manufactured by mortals and my name selected by computational algorithm. Again. Say Rah..."
A lung-deep sigh. "Raaaaahhhhh..."
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