If we could reform the system just enuf to represent the actual sounds of English consistently, the native speaker would have no difficulty then approximating kar-uh-jich, or whatever it’s supposed to be. It could be transliterated into English “local orthography” just like it’s translated into Serbian, Croatian and, I’d add, Latvian.

But precisely because we haven’t reached that level of consistency, there is no way to communicate to English speakers how to pronounce the name most faithfully. The vast majority will find foreign diacritics to be of no use whatsoever. On the other hand, using a J in Karojich would run the risk that it ends up like Beizzhing, a windmill my friend Graham has already tilted at.

Alas, then, I will fall in line and agree that the only bandage to put on this is to include diacritic marks. Thus the three people who care can track down what the actual pronunciation of the name would be in the local language. Everyone else will ignore it and probably end up saying what Lord Harries said.

In my opinion, not using the diacritics is simply wrong. If one is not going to write Milošević, then write Miloshevich, at least it gives the reader some idea of how the name is pronounced. In Serbian and Croatian foreign names are always transliterated into local orthography, e.g. Buš.

I suppose editors would argue that the average reader would have no idea what these ‘funny foreign letters’ mean. But this is surely a nonsense and rather demeaning to the reader. It’s not as if one is asking the reader to identify 胡锦涛.