People spelling names.

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

Hi everyone. I was watching a documentary says that Yakov Yerovsky's  (not sure if I spelled that right)

The best option instead of apologizing for using the wrong spellings which the FA disapproves of, is to just open up another tab or window and type it into Google. Then you usually get up that person, place or term's Wikipedia page, which always has the right spelling. That way, one quickly learns the correct spelling. :-)  

[Lindelle]

Try PRONOUNCING the names.
I'm a teacher and sometimes I shake my head at the NEW way parents have to spell their childs name.

Khe-Sahn
Kasey-KC-Casey-Casy......................................
Lindsay-Lindsey-Linsey-Linsay-Lyndsay-Lynsay-Linsey
Kimberly-Kimberley-Kimbuhlee-
Sarah-Sara
Alana-Alanah

The list goes on and on and sometimes downright time consuming!

[Galactic_Misfit]

my cousin is also a teacher and feels the same way as you Lindelle. I have a pretty unique spelling of my first name and it used to annoy me so much as a kid when people couldn't get it right... but it was even worse when for a period of a month or so, my own dad couldn't spell it right.  Actually, come to think of it, most of my family can't spell it right.

[Lindelle]

And I bet your cousin has to break the students names into syllables sometimes too? Now that's embarrasing.

I do hope your family spell your name correctly soon for you.

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

I can understand people have difficulty spelling Freedericksz right, but misspelling Benckendorff as Beckendorf for example. really irritate me, for some reason! :-)

English speakers writing Battenburg instead of Battenberg is of course more on the charmingly childlike side, like all misspellings that originate in oral language, which is the original form of language.

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

Gödöllő, the Hungarian summer residence of Empress-Queen Sisi, now there's a tricky name to spell!

I see that there are only three posts with correct spellings on the forum (all written by Hungarians). Ca. 10 posts spell it as Gödöllö, while ca. 10 posts spell it glaringly wrong, as Godollo! In the latter case using the town's old German name Getterle, would probably offend Hungarian sensibilities less....

The letters ö and ő represent the same vowel sound in Hungarian: /ø/, but ö represents the short form [ø], while ő represents the long form [ø:]. The pronunciation of Gödöllő is thus  [ˈɡødølːøː]. (Note that Hungarian apparently also has long consonants!)

BTW in operative systems using Unicode, it's relatively easy to write vowels with double accents, once you find the corresponding Unicodes, which is U+0151 in the case of ő. Thus typing U151 while holding down Shift and Ctrl produces an ő in my case.

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

Oh my God, there are actually posts (I will not say which - *lips sealed*) that spell Bragança as "Braganca" instead of Braganza!!! *Horrified look*

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

From the Thread on Crown Princess Märtha of Norway:

Sigh, her name was Märtha, pronounced /mɛrta/.

Fyodor, i ,among other in this forum , appreciate very much your effort to teach us how to spell right names and stuff but you must understand that mostly of us, with NO SPECiFIC names, as  Märtha, we just write it or in english or in our language (in spanish Martha is Marta).You must understand also that for mostly of all, just write and read english is a big challenge since its NOT our language. So,  anyway we KNOW of who we re talking about and honestly, sometimes your corrections sounds rather rude and snotty. Sorry,

I am just standing up for national, linguistic and typographic diversity in the face of ugly Microsoft monopolistic uniformity.

but for most people here on the forum does not have the letters Å,Ä,Ö which makes it hard for them to write Märtha

Hard, but not impossible:
Windows Alt Code for ä (make sure Num Lock is switched on): Alt+132
Windows-1252 code for ä: 228
Unicode: U+00E4

I do have ä on my keyboard, but holding down Ctrl and Shift and typing the Unicode UE4 also gives me an ä. It's easy!

So what is the standard English spelling of "Märtha"? Maertha, Märtha or Martha?

What about Württemberg? Is it Wuerttemberg, Württemberg or (horror of horrors) Wurttemberg?

The right spelling in english is MARTHA. Check Wikipedia and other english sites

Oh yes, of course, I do know that. I was wondering what the official English forum spelling of her name would be.
Should we really call her Crown Princess Martha? After all, we do write "Louis-Philippe" (King of the French) and not "Lewis Philip", so there are limits to Anglification.

I don't know how others feel, but for me using the correct diacritics and spelling in the names and titles of royals is very much akin to giving them their due styles. There are differences between Imperial Majesty, Imperial Highness and mere Highness that you just can't ignore if you want to treat royalty by its own, cosmopolitan terms.

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

Oh no, most posts about Princess Irina Felixovna Yusupova spell her nickname Bébé as "Bebe". How crude!

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

Try PRONOUNCING the names.
I'm a teacher and sometimes I shake my head at the NEW way parents have to spell their childs name.

In Norway a naming "problem" is now that parents are avoiding traditional names with the letters æ, ø and å, like Håkon, Sæmund, Øystein, Åse, Ingebjørg, Bård, Hjørdis, Jørgen, Bjørn etc. because they fear that in a  globalized world, their names will be butchered (in writing) by the dominant Anglophone culture! Sad.

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

Daniel Bruhl (whoever that may be) might be "uber-handsome" (as in Latin uber, udder?), but I think more people agree that Daniel Brühl (or Bruehl) is über-handsome*.

* I don't even list "ueber-handsome" as an alternative. Why use an iconic German term for emphasis in the first place if you water it down by Anglifying it?

And before you ask: How to type a "ü".

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

And of course it's mighty strange how many members choose to spell the title "Fürst" à la suédoise as "Furst"! :-) (Especially considering how few Swedish furstar there have been. Only two: Hessenstein and Putbus.)

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

Lol, the uncouth spelling Glucksburg and the logical English pronunciation thereof makes me think of /Gløcksborg/, which undoubtedly would be the proletarian East End pronunciation of the reigning dynasty's name in /Oshlo/ - and perhaps also in proletarian Nørrebro in /Køwenhawn/?

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

I'm new here, and I am trying to do the Genealogy of the German Keans.
Has anyone ever heard of the Kuehns of Culten?

I must applaud your ancestors for realizing that it's only the rounding of the lips that distinguishes the [y:] vowel in Kühn from the [i:] in Kean and that it thus makes more sense to write it Kean than Kuhn or Kuehn in English. (Though Keen would have been preferable, etymologically.) The same thought the Tollkühns, better known as Tolkiens, and the same can be observed in the more colloquial rendering of Württemberg as Wirttemberg.

[capttrips]

Fyoder, huh?  I am kind of linguistically and phoenetically savy, but, you lost me.

We became Keans only because the English called us that.

In Germany, I have variably seen my family sign its name as Xulten, Seiferbach, Eisenach, and a lot of other place names.

I am told, during the AD 800s it was CYN in Greek lettering, and slowly morphed over time from Cune, Kune, Kuen, to Kuhn and the last change of the name were the umlauts over the u in the 1630s, which was latter changed to Kuehn with a French accent mark over the e during the early 1800s.

We are Huns, which goes a long way to explain why no one can spell our name correctly.