Trust me friend jjimm, this is in the pit. If I were to feel like calling anybody stupid, there would be no doubt.
If that was the case, the OP wouldn’t be saying that “SERIOUSLY” people sound like idiots for not using the same transliteration. One doesn’t sound like an idiot for using a perfectly valid alternate transliteration.
If the debate is over what spelling the Gandhi family prefered, I agree. If the debate is over which is the “correct” or “not idiotic” way of spelling it, I disagree.
Yes, there are accepted transliterations for certain proper names, I wouldn’t deny that. But that doesn’t make them ‘correct’, simply prevelant.
For instance, “Peking” as a transliteration for “Bejing”
No, in the general sense, as opposed to the specific sense, as in the case of Mohandas K. Gandhi and his family.
Because there is an absolute for these people. Are you really so thick that you can’t make the distinction between general and specific? How many more times do I have to say it?
Yuh-huh.
I don’t care what NodeWorks has to say, it’s still a stupid way to spell it. ABSOLUTELY. NYAH.
I understand and respect what you are saying. I do spell the name “Leger” for that particular family, out of respect for the way they want it spelled. Though going back through the family tree, and seeing others with the same name spelled differently makes people wonder what happened. “Aunt’s whim”, they say.
I spell my first name “Anastasia”, though I get many, many variations of it. My FIL is forever spelling it “Anastacia”. Like I said, though, maybe it’s just me who doesn’t mind. When others DO mind, I respect their wishes. I won’t argue with a Sarah who hates to be Sara
It’s just MHO (very humble) that there’s no right or wrong way. I will spell it the way the family decides to spell it, but I’m not sure how much I’d want to call someone else an “idiot” for not spelling it the way the family does (as per the OP).
It’s just too easy to get lost in translation.
No, even in the specific case it is still a matter of personal preference, not correctness.
Besides, to steal your phrasing, are you really so thick that you don’t grok that in any case, general or specific, it is still an aproximation?
I don’t know, are you so thick that you don’t understand your OP calls people idiots for transliterating it differently? Thus suggesting an objective standard of transliteration?
If your rant is “Don’t tell the Gandhis how to spell their name in English!”, then, um, ok.
Anything beyond that is factually incorrect, especially if you call people idiots.
The spelling denotes a different word. As such, it’s, to use your terms, SERIOUSLY idiotic to call a word stupid because you don’t like how it’s spelled.
From a brief search, it seems there’s a standard transliteration convention (Rice?) that distinguishes between the Hindi “gh” and “g” sound, and the “dh” and “d” sound. “Gandhi” is constructed using this version.
The spelling “Ghandi” would conflict with this and give a wrong approximation of the actual name. Unless the people using this spelling are working with a different transliteration system?
Indeed, but were you to use this, may I suggest that, given the many-decades-long convention of transliterative spelling of this name, you’d look a bit of an idiot?
Fair enough, but you’re still wrong.
Someone doesn’t sound like an idiot for using a different transliteration.
For instance, in my years of going to temple I’ve seen a great many different transliterations. Never once have I accused a Rabbi of sounding or writing like an idiot.
You may suggest it.
However I don’t see any idiocy inherent in creating another somewhat arbitrary and non-absolute system to replace another somewhat arbitrary and non-absolute system.
They do so when it’s not the way the family in question spells it. And especially when they refer to the 1982 Ben Kingsley picture, but definitely when the family of Mohandas K. Gandhi is concerned.
Hell, to tangent, because “Gandhi” is the commonly accepted spelling (its correctness in this case is irrelevant), they still sound like idiots for spelling it differently. But that doesn’t matter.
“You called me an idiot!”
“No, I didn’t. I said you sounded like an idiot.”
“Fru… wha… zuh? BAH!”
“Nice comeback.”
“Zoo!”
But still. In case you’re thinking about calling someone an idiot. There’s always that threat hanging in the air over our heads, if we misinterpret and/or misspell a name because we’re not sure, or don’t care unless the family asks us to care.
“Psst. The family spells it differently.”
“So?”
“**Tracy Lord ** of the SDMB might think it looks idiotic.”
“Eep! How’s that spelled again? I don’t want to look like an idiot!”
I tease, I tease. But I still stand by the idea that I will respect a family’s wishes to spell something a certain way, but not that is correct or incorrect either way, simply because I have first cousins named “Leger”, and the other first cousins are of the exact same family, and named “Legere”.
Tracy: Have fun with this thread. I’m kinda tired of it and going to unsubscribe. Might check back in later, but even the indefatigable Finn gets tired of semantic/linguistic mincing after a while.
People misspell and mispronounce my name all the time. I can count on one hand the number of people who have ever gotten it consistently right without asking me first, and they rarely ask me first. When I was a kid, my friends often couldn’t spell my first name, which only has four letters in it and is one of the most common names in the world.
So frankly, misspelling a name in a way that a huge majority of people spell it so that’s what we’re exposed to most often anyway, is no big deal to me.
It really shouldn’t be too big of a deal to anyone but the family concerned.
My co-worker is named 坂本. This may appear as gibberish on your browser, but it’s the kanji characters for ‘hill’ and ‘origin’.
Now, he moves to America and begins using the standard romaji reading for his name, Sakamoto. He uses this spelling to create all his ID cards, business cards, credit cards, membership cards, signatures, etc.
Now I, being of the opinion that transliterations are all relative and of equal validity, decide to call him Sahcamotoh.
He says I’ve misspelled his name. I say I haven’t. Who’s right?
Now, same question, only my co-worker was born in America and has a birth certificate that reads “James Randolph Sakamoto.”
But I still stand by the idea that I will respect a family’s wishes to spell something a certain way, but not that is correct or incorrect either way, simply because I have first cousins named “Leger”, and the other first cousins are of the exact same family, and named “Legere”.