the last blog

poking intellectual holes in the lid of your simplicity

Sunday, March 05, 2006

I Spell Well

It has been pointed out to me that, in the post below, I made a spelling error. The post was about Bush's visit to the memorial site of "Ghandi", but the correct spelling is "Gandhi". Er, sorry about that. However, it worked out since the person who told me this was Ruchira Paul of the Accidental Blogger. It gave me a chance to find a new blog and it's a very nice one. It turns out that their "accidental" blogging is way better than the purposeful variety found here. So go, visit, enjoy the joy.

Thanks.

posted by Samwick @ 12:11 PM  

15 Comments:

  • At 4:12 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    It is a common mistake - I have seen it happen before. More relevant is the fact that your post about Bush and Gandhi is very funny and right on the money. Indian peace activists too were enraged by the breathtaking hypocrisy of the gesture.

    Thank you very much for the generous plug. The beginnings of my blog were indeed accidental but we aim to be purposeful. (Must master that "two word book review" technique!) I am glad you enjoyed your visit there. Please do come back.

    I am an amateur painter (dabbler, if truth be told). One of the prettiest colors in my paint box is Cerulean Blue.

     

  • At 7:27 AM, Blogger Sheryl said…

    If it makes you feel any better, Gandhi was probably just a transcription from something like Hindi anyway. So now you need to go look it up and spell it properly, dern it!

     

  • At 9:14 AM, Blogger Unknown said…

    Sheryl:
    It does matter - you are being terribly Euro/Anglo centric here, aren't you? According to your logic, only names spelt in original European languages have a "correct" spelling in English.

    Even if a name is phonetically transcribed from a non-European language into an English spelling, the "correct" spelling is how the owner of the name chooses to spell it. Gandhi spelt his Indian name as "Gandhi". So the correct spelling is "Gandhi".... no need to go to the trouble of looking up the Indian roots. My name is non-European - does that give you the right to spell it any way you want because it is not to be found in an English dictionary? A person's name is an identifying label. We ought to respect that. If I spell your name Sherryl or Cheryl, it is NOT your name even though phonetically, it is correct.

     

  • At 11:10 AM, Blogger Samwick said…

    Well put. In college I had a friend from Malaysia who refused to divulge her real name. She asked everyone to call her Sarah. I asked her why and she said, "Americans are name-manglers. I wish it didn't hurt me the way it does, but, in fact, it hurts."

     

  • At 12:49 PM, Blogger Snave said…

    If playing the flute diminishes the validity of one's personal philosophy, what does playing the bass clarinet do? I only play bass clarinet on Monday evenings at community concert band practice, during songs such as Bernstein's "Worst Side Story", Sousa's "Golden Shower Jubilee" and onoe from 1946 entitled "The March of the Belching Paratroopers"... or should that be "Belgian"? Anyway, how often did Schopenhauer play the flute, and with how much intensity? Surely the mere fact that he played shouldn't have much to do with the believability of his ideas. Tell me it isn't so.

     

  • At 3:12 AM, Blogger Sheryl said…

    You missed my point entirely. As it turns out, you guys are the anglophiles, not me!!!!! My point was that it would probably be in some script like Devanagari (not in our roman characters at all.)

    As it turns out, I was wrong. I consulted with a friend of mine in India, who says that english is the most standard language there and that on Gandhi's memorial site his name is most prominently written in english, although also written in other languages.

    If I am understanding his explanation, then this is a proper non-anglophile spelling:

    गांधी

     

  • At 3:36 AM, Blogger Sheryl said…

    Sure enough, I got it right. Here are the kinds of pages that come up if you are not an "anglophile" and know how to spell. :-P

    http://mr.wikipedia.org/wiki/महात्मा_मोहनदास_करमचंद_गांधी

     

  • At 11:39 AM, Blogger Unknown said…

    Sheryl:
    I am not entirely sure what you want to demonstrate with the Devnagari spelling. I read Devnagari. That spelling is exactly transcribed as "Gandhi" in Roman script.

    Anyway, more important here was the "content" of Matt's post about Bush and Gandhi. And that we can agree is excellent.

     

  • At 12:22 AM, Blogger Sheryl said…

    You accused me of being an anglophile, but an anglophile would almost certainly use the roman script.

    In terms of not being sure of the others intention, I was not sure what you thought you were proving calling me an anglophile when you know nothing at all about my views on culture. When in fact my only point was that english was probably not the primary language of Gandhi to start with.

     

  • At 9:42 AM, Blogger Jericho said…

    Oh, well, let's speak of punctuation instead of spelling. Commas and periods should be within the quotation marks.

     

  • At 12:21 PM, Blogger Samwick said…

    Aahhh!! If we begin focusing on punctuation I'm doomed!

     

  • At 2:04 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    Calm down Sheryl. I claim to know nothing about you except what you wrote in your comments.

    I pointed out the spelling of Gandhi in a comment at another blog which had linked to Matt's article - which was nice because I now have found this very funny BLUE blog to add to my reading list.

    May be my brain is foggy by reading so many blogs. But I still have not understood your point Sheryl. What ARE you saying regarding the spelling of Gandhi?

    1.Does it or does it not matter how it is written in English because Gandhi's primary language was not English? I already answered why it matters.

    2.Or is it that Matt should have written his name in Devnagari script? In which case, with a few exceptions like me, most of his readers would not have been able to decipher it. So that would have been quite pointless.

    Anyway, this the last time I am going to say anything about the spelling of Gandhi .. may he and his name rest in peace. (Sorry, Matt - I did not mean to be rude when I pointed this out)

     

  • At 10:36 PM, Blogger Samwick said…

    "Sorry, Matt - I did not mean to be rude when I pointed this out"

    You were merely offering constructive criticism and not being the least bit rude. I know Sheryl enjoys lively dialogue and debate, so all is well.

    Oh and I meant to ask, I would like to add you to the blog roll if that's okay.

    Thanks.

     

  • At 10:18 AM, Blogger Unknown said…

    Of course it is okay to add me to your blogroll... always appreciate help from other bloggers. Thanks! You are now on mine.

     

  • At 11:30 AM, Blogger Sheryl said…

    "Or is it that Matt should have written his name in Devnagari script? In which case, with a few exceptions like me, most of his readers would not have been able to decipher it. So that would have been quite pointless. "

    Yes, but not pointless. I was teasing Matt (as we all frequently do around here.)

     

Post a Comment

<< Home