# Why do so many dopers use Ghandi instead of Gandhi? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 8, 2011, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-dopers-use-ghandi-instead-of-gandhi/602319 "2011-11-08T21:33:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-dopers-use-ghandi-instead-of-gandhi/602319/21 "2011-11-09T07:26:34Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Gandhi is correct. Ghandi OTH is far too close too Ghand_u_. No, actually. What you’re trying to get at would be Gandu, or more correctly Gandoo. And, let me add, the fact that you would pop into a thread in GQ and throw in a gratuitous and false near-equivalence between Gandhi’s name and the hindi word for asshole makes me very suspicious indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-dopers-use-ghandi-instead-of-gandhi/602319/22 "2011-11-09T07:31:27Z")
> [@BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](#): > > I also see Buddha without the h a lot (Google puts it at 7 million hits for budda and 105 million for buddha), if that means anything to your question. It’s also not unusual to encounter it written as Bhudda. I think its just that these are relatively unusual foreign words, and that people remember there’s meant to be an H in there somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-dopers-use-ghandi-instead-of-gandhi/602319/23 "2011-11-09T07:34:15Z")
I wonder if there’s an unconscious association between Ghandi and Hindi. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-dopers-use-ghandi-instead-of-gandhi/602319/24 "2011-11-09T09:38:01Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > The digraph “gh” is common in English, and often sounds like a hard “g” when at the beginning of a word (as in ghost or ghastly or ghetto). “Dh” does not occur with any particular frequency in English. All digraphs occur with a particular frequency in English, and while for many of them that frequency is 0, this isn’t the case for \. I ran a quick test on 34 GB of English data from the Leipzig Corpora Collection and found that among 618,894,352 sentences, \ appeared in 30,819,750 and \ in 1,202,111. So while \ is about a thirtieth as common as \, its frequency certainly isn’t negligible. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-dopers-use-ghandi-instead-of-gandhi/602319/25 "2011-11-09T09:41:29Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > Well I suppose part of the problem is that his name is originally in a different language. So many English speakers will not be aware that the ‘h’ actually changes the pronunciation, and is thus not really silent. I’m trying and failing to come up with a word that uses the ‘dh’ sound in English. > Friedo also has a point about the ‘gh’ sound not being much different from ‘g’ and appearing in other words. The problem with using terms like “‘dh’ sound” and “‘gh’ sound” is that they refer to different things in different contexts. For example, in English the letter sequence \ can sound like /g/ as in _ghost_, like /f/ as in _tough_, like /h/ as in some pronunciations of _Gallagher_, or can be completely silent as in _through_. It’s not clear what pronunciation the \ of Gandhi’s name would have in his mother tongue—I suspect it might be a retroflex /ɖ/. In English, however, it’s just a regular /d/, not a /d/ followed by an /h/. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-dopers-use-ghandi-instead-of-gandhi/602319/26 "2011-11-09T10:35:43Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > The problem with using terms like “‘dh’ sound” and “‘gh’ sound” is that they refer to different things in different contexts. For example, in English the letter sequence \ can sound like /g/ as in _ghost_, like /f/ as in _tough_, like /h/ as in some pronunciations of _Gallagher_, or can be completely silent as in _through_. It’s not clear what pronunciation the \ of Gandhi’s name would have in his mother tongue—I suspect it might be a retroflex /ɖ/. In English, however, it’s just a regular /d/, not a /d/ followed by an /h/. True, I was far from being precise in an absolute sense but I was talking only in context, with the ‘gh’ sound referring to the examples given (ghost,ghetto) and the ‘dh’ sound meaning the hindi consonant ‘ध’ which appears in Gandhi’s name and has no analogous sound in English that I can think of. For some reason, it’s terribly difficult to find on youtube as well. For those who’re interested, [here’s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAVlTWHdHJw&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL96E7A35B8DA2DCF0) the best example I could find - a classical music tuition video. The first few notes(from seconds 4 to 11) are sa **dha** pa pa **dha** ma. This is the ‘dh’ sound with an ‘aa’ sound attached to it. Remove the ‘aa’ and replace with an ‘ee’ sound and you get the latter half of Gandhi. So now that it’s all put together, perhaps his name should _really_ be spelt Ghaandhee and this thread has lost all meaning 😃 ---
**Author:** ![King\_Bobo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c68b51/32.png) [@King\_Bobo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/King_Bobo)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-dopers-use-ghandi-instead-of-gandhi/602319/27 "2011-11-09T10:45:44Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > The problem with using terms like “‘dh’ sound” and “‘gh’ sound” is that they refer to different things in different contexts. For example, in English the letter sequence \ can sound like /g/ as in _ghost_, like /f/ as in _tough_, like /h/ as in some pronunciations of _Gallagher_, or can be completely silent as in _through_. It’s not clear what pronunciation the \ of Gandhi’s name would have in his mother tongue—I suspect it might be a retroflex /ɖ/. In English, however, it’s just a regular /d/, not a /d/ followed by an /h/. Interesting that you should use the example of “Gallagher” as that is my name. I use the Irish pronunciation of it as “galla-her” and when asked to spell it, am often told “oh, you mean ‘gall-ag-her’” as in the American pronunciation. I am almost at the point of defeat and sometimes find myself using the American version. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-dopers-use-ghandi-instead-of-gandhi/602319/28 "2011-11-09T13:46:31Z")
In a similar vein: Why can’t people spell the Italian name Giuseppe? Googling gave me over 15 million hits for Guiseppe. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-dopers-use-ghandi-instead-of-gandhi/602319/29 "2011-11-09T17:21:07Z")
> [@BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](#): > > I sometimes just can’t remember where that silent h is supposed to go. This zeroes in on the problem. The _H_ isn’t “silent.” The reason English speakers have a problem with the spelling is that they can’t really hear or say on of the key phones in the name. > [@](#): > > I also see Buddha without the h a lot (Google puts it at 7 million hits for budda and 105 million for buddha), if that means anything to your question. Same thing here. The _DDH_ represents a phone in Indian languages that is different from _D_, _DD_, and _DH_, all of which represent different sounds. Actually, they each can represent _two distinct_ phones, retroflex and dental, but it’s impossible to represent them distinctively without diacritics. > [@bldysabba](#): > > Friedo also has a point about the ‘gh’ sound not being much different from ‘g’ and appearing in other words. Yes, but again, in English. In Indian languages, there is a difference between _G_ and _GH_. > [@Odesio](#): > > I usually spell in Ghandi because that’s how I was taught to spell it when I was a child. Simple as that. But who could have possibly taught it to you that way? It’s never been an accepted spelling of the name. > [@psychonaut](#): > > It’s not clear what pronunciation the \ of Gandhi’s name would have in his mother tongue—I suspect it might be a retroflex /ɖ/. It’s not retroflex. It’s dental. Specifically, it’s the _aspirated_ (thus, the _H_) voiced dental plosive – /d̪/ ---
**Author:** ![BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-dopers-use-ghandi-instead-of-gandhi/602319/30 "2011-11-10T03:19:56Z")
> [@BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](#): > > I sometimes just can’t remember where that silent h is supposed to go. > [@Acsenray](#): > > This zeroes in on the problem. The _H_ isn’t “silent.” The reason English speakers have a problem with the spelling is that they can’t really hear or say on of the key phones in the name. It is in English, is what I meant. And if English speakers never hear a difference then they have no real chance to use sounds to try to remember where the h goes. Not that it’s much different than other things that aren’t spelled according to sounds, I just wanted to throw out a single data point that something like that occasionally gets me, where almost no other spelling oddity usually does. Which of course is useless until someone does a study about it, but there you go. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-dopers-use-ghandi-instead-of-gandhi/602319/31 "2011-11-10T05:34:32Z")
Thanks for the responses everyone. ISTM that since Gandhi contains a sound ‘dh’ that has no parallel in English, most native english speakers don’t understand the point of the ‘dh’ digraph, which is relatively uncommon to begin with anyway. This combines with the relative popularity of the ‘gh’ digraph and the fact that words beginning with G and Gh sound fairly similar in English to exacerbate the problem. I’m glad I posted this in GQ instead of the pit like all the previous threads on the issue! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-dopers-use-ghandi-instead-of-gandhi/602319.md?page=1)