Get inside your opponent's head. Learn how he thinks, read his papers, books, learn his language, talk to him face to face. then you have the weapons to defeat him. Brendy, why did you not ask me where I learned my English? And what has this got to do with anything ? I didn't ask you where you learned English. Of course, this sort of ploy is a well-known one for trying to suss out the origins of someone. Your type is not happy debating points. You have to know where the person comes from, what school he went to etc. so that you can fall back on the all-condemnatory "Oh, well. What could you expect from one of them !!" put a stop to further conversation and walk away. Debates should depend for their efficacy on the content and presentation and not on the origins of your opponent. I don't really care where you come from, or whether you are male of female, your name is inconclusive in this respect. One more thing, Kevin. It does matter what way you spell a name. If you have any respect for Language and the way it works, then you realist the necessity for a standardised system of orthography to ease communication. It was the very lack of such a system that led Shakespeare to spell his name in so many different ways, and it was this cavalier attitude that, paradoxically enough, led to the standardising of English spelling in subsequent years. Erse is the same. The "Old" standard orthography became regarded as cumbersome - not inaccurate, just cumbersome - and thus was replaced by the "simplified" Standard. In the "old" spelling, your name was spelled as I gave above while under the new régime it is spelled "Caoimhín". While you are free to choose between these two "correct" versions, you are not at liberty to spell in such a way that breaks the most fundamental rules of the language Caiohmghen seems to tell us that the vowel "o" has undergone Lenition, a phenomenon applying only to consonants, while the "-en" ending does not exist. The vowel group "aio" only exists if the "i" is long i.e. "í" and the group indicates a Substantival or Adjectival ending, neither of which applies to the first syllable of a polysyllabic word as instanced by your "name". In any case this is all a red herring and adds not a jot to the debate. Another favourite Nationalist ploy. "Change the subject, quick, distract the attention, move the goalposts." I am still waiting for an alternative spelling of my name. Trevor