Naming Kids "Foe-net-ik-al-ee"

Lusankya · Post by **Lusankya** » 2008-03-08 05:44pm

Surlethe wrote:
Bounty wrote:
Writing "to laugh" or "Bordeaux" when it should be spelled "laf" and "Bordo" is ridiculous.
"Laf" and "laugh" are pronounced in a completely different way, as are "Bordo" and "Bordeaux". You can't just cut out letters and expect the word to still work.
In (at least my dialect of) American English, "laff" is a phonetic representation of "laugh", and "Bordo" is a phonetic representation of "Bordeaux". They are not pronounced differently at all.

In my dialect of English (cultured Australian), laf would have a short vowel and laf would have a long one. And Bordo might have the same pronunciation as Bordeaux, but it would have a different stress (BOR-do instead of Bor-DEAUX).

To be honest, since English has more sounds than the Roman Alphabet has letters, we'd have to develop a new alphabet in order to obtain a proper phonetic transcription. And given the number of dialects of English, a phonetic transcription would also result in even more spelling variations of English than there are now. It would make written communication between regions even harder than it is now.

KlavoHunter · Post by **KlavoHunter** » 2008-03-08 09:14pm

I have to say, I giggled a bit when #s 15-18 of "The blackest girl names" were all "Jasmine" or some mispelling thereof.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2008-03-09 06:12am

Bounty wrote:
Writing "to laugh" or "Bordeaux" when it should be spelled "laf" and "Bordo" is ridiculous.
"Laf" and "laugh" are pronounced in a completely different way, as are "Bordo" and "Bordeaux". You can't just cut out letters and expect the word to still work.

Or course you can. We do that in Germany every now and then. It works perfectly fine. Of course people get worked up about it for no good reason but it still works. Spelling was just reformed a couple of years ago. You give the people a couple of years of time in which both ways of spelling are valid and then you move on to the newer way of spelling.
Words in German are spelled the way they are pronounced making it much easier to lern how to spell in German than in, for example, French or English.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2008-03-09 06:16am

Lusankya wrote: In my dialect of English (cultured Australian), laf would have a short vowel and laf would have a long one. And Bordo might have the same pronunciation as Bordeaux, but it would have a different stress (BOR-do instead of Bor-DEAUX).

To be honest, since English has more sounds than the Roman Alphabet has letters, we'd have to develop a new alphabet in order to obtain a proper phonetic transcription. And given the number of dialects of English, a phonetic transcription would also result in even more spelling variations of English than there are now. It would make written communication between regions even harder than it is now.

German has more sounds than the Roman Alphabet has letters as well and there are a crapload of dialects. A person from one region won´t even understand a person from another reason if he puts on a heavy dialect.
Just because it´s impossible to make spelling phonetically correct for everybody to hundertpercent doesn´t mean that you can´t improve it at all and at least throw out the completely ridicolous things like pronouncing "gh" as "f" or "eaux" as "o".

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2008-03-09 02:46pm

Of all the phonetic misspellings I have ever encountered, there is only one that I have liked: Shavone. It sounds exactly like the original Gaelic Siobhán, but is much easier for people on this side of the pond to pronounce. And I daresay that it looks much better.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2008-03-09 02:53pm

German has more sounds than the Roman Alphabet has letters as well and there are a crapload of dialects. A person from one region won´t even understand a person from another reason if he puts on a heavy dialect.

And that's why you have specific spellings instead of this one-size-fits-all, retard-proof Fischer-price vocabulary. How are you going to settle on a single retard spelling anyway? You say "laff", someone else pronounces it "lahf", or "lef", or "loff". What's the easy spelling now?

Words in German are spelled the way they are pronounced making it much easier to lern how to spell in German than in, for example, French or English.

I suppose that's why you spell it "raaikstak", right

salm · Post by **salm** » 2008-03-09 04:23pm

Bounty wrote: And that's why you have specific spellings instead of this one-size-fits-all, retard-proof Fischer-price vocabulary. How are you going to settle on a single retard spelling anyway? You say "laff", someone else pronounces it "lahf", or "lef", or "loff". What's the easy spelling now?

What do you mean specific spellings? There are no specific spellings. There´s one spelling for all. Dialects are not written in general. German has a one size fits all retard spelling. That´s because we keep it updated. (Well unfortunately it´s not completely retard proof, but it´s a lot better than French or English)

How do you settle on a specific spelling? Well you just do it. It´s not that hard. It´s been done all the time in dictionaries.

I suppose that's why you spell it "raaikstak", right

I have no clue what you´re trying to say here. Do you mean "Reichstag"? If yes "raaikstak" would be completely wrong phonetically whereas the correct spelling "Reichstag" would be completely right phonetically.

Like mentioned above. It´s not about making it 100% perfect for everybody. It´s about improving the situation as far as possible.

Oni Koneko Damien · Post by **Oni Koneko Damien** » 2008-03-09 05:45pm

I think I may have lucked out. My name's Damien. I've known others with the same name as me, phonetically, but spelled 'Damian', 'Damion' and 'Dameon'. The spread seems to be pretty equal, and as far as I know each spelling is equally valid, historically. No matter how it's spelled, it's always been pronounced 'Day-me-in', or among those who hold more Central-American accents, 'Dah-me-on'.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2008-03-09 09:46pm

Oni Koneko Damien wrote:I think I may have lucked out. My name's Damien. I've known others with the same name as me, phonetically, but spelled 'Damian', 'Damion' and 'Dameon'. The spread seems to be pretty equal, and as far as I know each spelling is equally valid, historically. No matter how it's spelled, it's always been pronounced 'Day-me-in', or among those who hold more Central-American accents, 'Dah-me-on'.

Yep, that pretty much mirrors my experience exactly. "Damien" is a unique enough name that it stands out, people don't forget it, but it's not "weird". It's just different. I often feel bad, because I'm terrible with names, so I always wind up meeting people who know who I am, but I have no clue who they are.