BS: Spelling of names

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Mar 03 - 11:16 AM

ah, Bagpuss...you have hit one of my sore points

although I am totally aware that dyslexia and other learning disabilities are NO joke, and I do not expect someone who has them to cope with spelling and grammar easily...but..I AM concerned with an attitude of "it isn't worth my time to try, or to, for Pete's sake, LOOK UP unfamilar words!

...a story:
I used to be a graduate teaching assistant (Philosophy) in one of those BIG classes in college,,(300+ students)...in order to expose them to a bit of what Philosophers did, we'd occasionally have visiting lecturers and offer extra credit points to students who'd attend and turn in a 1-2 page synosis of the lecture.

So..one day Prof. Roderick Chisholm was to speak. The subject revolved about Epistemology, and used Hericlitus' statement that "you can't step into the same river twice" as a theme...and a few days later I had about 100 little papers to grade,(about ½ of the submissions).

Here is a partial list of the Philosophers that my students told me that Prof. Chilson, Chissum, Chisom, Chisum, Chilsome...etc..referred to: ...Heraclitus, Ariolitus, Ariclides, Hericlides, Hericlydes, Periclitus, Pericles, Heroclitus, Heroclytus, Hera clites, Hariclidus, Heraklitos, Heraqitus, Hericlatus, Haricletes, Arclydas, Hericlytis, Haroclydas, Ericlidis, Airalidus, Erraclitus (I like that one!), Caraclitus, Peraclutus, Aeroclides, Procritic, St. Colitions, and....Aristotle!(spelled perfectly, and totally wrong!)

Professor Chisholm's name was freely available on flyers, and Hericlitus was in their textbook...they simply didn't LOOK!..and they didn't listen, and they guessed with no idea of what they were aiming for. Yep...some of those kids may well have had real problems, but many just did not care, and at that time I was not well equipped to teach 'caring'. Seems as though it is still a tricky thing to instill.

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: Bagpuss
Date: 21 Mar 03 - 05:53 AM

Just for the record, my name is Katy, not Katie; my maiden name was Grey, not Gray; and my surname now is Kiernan, not Kierman, Kieran, Keenan, Keiron.... (and my hubby as Fraser, not Frasier, Frazer, Frazier, Fergus or Hamish and he is certainly not Kieran Fraser!).

Better just call me Bagpuss

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Mar 03 - 08:08 PM

Not to worry. "Ghandi" is a very common mistake - I've seen it in newspapers often enough. See a word in print a few times and it starts to look probable, and the correct spelling can start to look wrong. There was a whole generation of kids who used to spell "beetles" as "beatle", because "beetle" started to look unfamiliar, which is how we mostly tell when a word is mispelt.

When I was a Social Worker, I had a colleague called McHarg, and we used to get each other's phone calls sometimes. Very confusing, particularly when we mistook the person calling for one of our own people. You get into a sort of spiral of cross purposes.

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: KarlMarx
Date: 20 Mar 03 - 06:06 PM

My apology certainly extends to Gandhi, wherever he may be. Interestingly, though not excusing my spelling error, I found the Gandhi reference at a Russian web site. Not ever having learned Russian from my Grandmother (Drat!), I ran the translation program, and it did not spell the man's name correctly. I, for my part, failed to check the translation. Oh, well. An embarrassing lesson learned . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 20 Mar 03 - 04:27 PM

PHilosopher= filosofo in Spanish, dropping the transliterated Greek PH used in English. Photograph = fotografia (So would StePHens= Stefens?). Where does Stevens come in? Stevens vs. Stephens has always been the name to cause me the most trouble- along with Mac-Mc-M'.

I remember a major newspaper of many years ago whose owner embarked on a plan to simplify spelling. The PH was tossed out along with some others. No other newspaper copied. The system was OK for common nouns and verbs, but broke down with proper names.

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: GUEST, herc
Date: 20 Mar 03 - 01:36 PM

Yikes, if greg stephens' theory is correct, I , not KarlMarx, have cause this personal eruption. I promise, McGrath of Harlow, that I did never intend rudeness by calling you McGraw. Truth. (I just enjoy mispelling things. Don't know why.)

Dan Kjelberry

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: khandu
Date: 20 Mar 03 - 01:03 PM

While we are on this subject, it is "khandu", not "Khandu". And it is "Greg SteVens" not "greg stephens". Yeah. ;~>

k.

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Mar 03 - 12:26 PM

it could be worse...my father's name was Audley, and the list of misspellings he collected over the years would fill a sheet of paper.

He eventually used just the initials A.W. for most things.

I think the very existence of the internet/WWW will, in time, clarify standard spellings for 'most' names of people and countries, as it will aid in searches. (Yes, I know Google is already offering you alternate spellings, but even that tends to 'direct' you to the accepted version)

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: greg stephens
Date: 20 Mar 03 - 11:20 AM

Being called Stephens is a bit like being called McGrath.People are always spelling your name wrong, and the irritation has obviously built up over the years and is boiling over. I wish I was called Smith.

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 20 Mar 03 - 10:06 AM

Well, yah boo sucks to you! It's "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch"!

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: Bullfrog Jones
Date: 20 Mar 03 - 07:20 AM

O.K. Karl, you've apologised to McGrath, now how about Gandhi?

BJ

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Mar 03 - 05:55 AM

What the 'ell, it's all Greek to me...

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 20 Mar 03 - 04:05 AM

In answer to the above, in "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyndrobwllantysiliogogogoch" the letter 'l' appears once only. all the other apparent uses are actually the Welsh letter 'Ll'

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 20 Mar 03 - 04:04 AM

Of course, some names cause difficulty with both spelling and pronunciation.A prime example is "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyndrobwllantysiliogogogoch" it is a good catch question to ask how often the letter 'l' appears in the spelling. You will often catch out even the Welsh speakers.

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 06:49 PM

Did you know his first name was Goosey-Goosey?

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: KarlMarx
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 06:43 PM

Mea culpa! I am afraid that I am responsible for the Gandhi spelling faux pas of which McGrath speaks. I cut and paste the Gandhi item without checking the spelling first - inexcusable. My apologies to a wise and wonderful human being, and to all of his admirers . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: gnu
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 06:43 PM

Yeah, I keep telling people that it's ****s, not ****, with an "s", because we were branded with sheep stealing, and damn proud of it, when we thrown out of Ireland over a century ago. It still doesn't get into their heads. And who the hell decided that **** (my first name) absolutley HAS to have two "r"s. I have a driver's license, property tax accounts, water and sewer accounts, a fishing license, five vehicle registerations, a passport, a firearms aquistion certificate, ad infinF***ingitum.... and hardly two of them are the same. What I can't understand is that I have ONE name, which I have never changed... so why do they ? Government.... whatever.

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 06:17 PM

Oops, sorry, I missed that.

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 05:49 PM

That's why I made the distinction between normal mispellings, and mispellings of names in posts that otherwise have impeccable spelling.

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 05:43 PM

It is not rude if a person has a learning disorder and I think we should quit picking on people who make honest mistakes. I've noticed a lot of people have been spelling hypocrisy wrong, as in "hypocrasy" but I didn't call them on it. Pedantry is fine and can be fun, but I think we should leave off on spelling, for the most part because there really are those among us who just have trouble with it, no matter what.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: Wolfgang
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 02:25 PM

And if you have difficulties how to call people from countries like
Kiribati
Liechtenstein
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Pierre and Miquelon
Cote d'Ivoire

there is always The World Factbook

(Boy, was I disappointed when I hoped to find out finally how the people from the Holy See are called (Holy Seers?) and the factbook did not give a noun; well, even the CIA doesn't know everything; and did I detect a tiny bias when the noun for people from Gaza strip (I didn't seriously expect to find Gaza strippers) was 'not available' instead of simply 'Palestinian'?)

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 01:52 PM

The subject here is the currently accepted English spelling for geographic abd bibliographis entries. The OED recognizes both Iraqi and Iraki for Iraquis (which I believe is the French). They also define Iraqize.
Maps have changed over the last 30 years. On National Geographic Society maps, Lisboa and Porto are shown as preferred although Portugal is retained; but many English spellings have been dropped, especially with regard to Arabic countries. A Brasilian would write Brasil rather than Brazil.
There is more than one system of transliterating Cyrillic (Russian, e. g.) into our characters. Try looking for Russian composers in music listings- by no means is there a universally accepted transliteration, although most English and American schools have adopted the system used by the Library of Congress.
I do not know the systems for transliterating Indian languages. Did Mohandas Gandhi prefer that spelling? Indira Gandhi did, but I don't know about others.

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: Beccy
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 01:10 PM

Maybe you mean Iroquois? Or perhaps, Irondequoitians (suburbanites from an area of Rochester, NY.)

Beccy

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: Wolfgang
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 01:08 PM

Who are the Iraquois? Is this how the French name a paramilitary group from Ireland?

Wolfgang (grin)

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: Beccy
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 11:49 AM

Is it Usama or Osama?

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: mack/misophist
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 11:42 AM

Not only are Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, and Chinese (to name a few) written with non-Latin characters; they contain sounds we don't use in English or, in some cases, any European language. This being the case, how could there possibly be correct spellings?

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 11:40 AM

It's not a major problem, but it's bad manners, especially in the case of Gandhi.

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: Bagpuss
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 11:39 AM

Eg from wikipedia

"Moammar Abu Minyar Al Qadhafi (1942 - ) The youngest child in a nomadic Bedouin peasant family in the desert region of Sirte, Gadhafi received a traditional religious primary education and attended the Sebha preparatory school in Sidra from 1956 to 1961. On January 15, 1970 he was proclaimed premier of Libya.

Gadhafi's name has been westernized in a wide variety of ways. These are the good alternatives: Gadhafi (best), Gadhdhafi, Qadhafi, Qadhdhafi, Kadhafi, Kadhdhafi. This alternative is often used, but is not considered to be acceptable: Khaddafi."

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: Bagpuss
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 11:36 AM

It can be a little difficult when the name comes from a language which uses a different alphabet to ours. Its difficult to know how to translate the spelling. With many names a standard becomes adopted by most people which makes things easier (eg Iraqis), but I noticed that during the Afghanistan episode, there was no such consensus about for example how to spell Taliban/Taleban. And the number of different ways I have seen Col. Gaddafi's name spelled over the years in different newspapers and websites (Gadafi, Gadhafi, Qadhafi etc)....

And as long as it is obvious what/who is being referred to, I can't see that it's a major problem.

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: BS: Spelling of names
From: Beccy
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 11:26 AM

Good point, McGrath. Have you noticed that there are some software packages that automatically shift into lower case subsequent upper case characters in proper names? (i.e., Mcgrath instead of McGrath)

Beccy

Subject: BS: Spelling of names
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 11:23 AM

We all make typos and so forth, and don't notice them, and I'm probably worse than most (though since I got the program HotLingo I'm a lot better). And generally that kind of thoimnh doesn't matter a damn.

But when it comes to names of countries and people I think we ought to be a bit more careful.

Just in the last skim I made through the threads I've come across "Iraquis" instead of Iraqis (perhaps people get confused with Iraquois), and Ghandi instead of Gandhi). They are perhaps the most common, but I'm sure people can think of a fewe more that crop up time and again.

It might be a good idea to use Google to check any spellings like that which we aren't sure of.