So, somebody elsewhere mispelled Siobhan

[conuly]

and so I looked up the name and it turns out it's Yet Another Variation on John, passing through French before arriving in Irish. I don't know why I was surprised.

On a related note, I once got into it with somebody who said that Irish names are impossible to read unless you already know how they're pronounced. No, they just don't follow English orthography. It just bugged me. Nobody would say that of Spanish names and words, would they? No, so they can apply the same logic to other languages. Irish orthography is pretty transparent, you only need to know how to read it. It's not actually magic.

LOL, though since I'm bringing up random commentary on names, that does remind me of the time I was at the Children's Museum and bumped into a class group. And I guess one child had never seen his friend's name written out before, because he looked at his friend's name tag and said "Your name is Jose? That's not right, you're Hozay!"

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Comments

[hudebnik]

Yes, if you start with the pronunciation of "Siobhan" and try to spell it under English orthography, you get "Shivaun".

"Caitlin" followed two different paths. American English-speakers who first encountered it in spoken form (I'm guessing through Irish immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) spelled it "Kathleen", while those who first encountered it in written form pronounced it "KATE-lin". (I don't know which, if either, of these happened in English English.)

I had a friend in Southern California whose SCA name was "Cein", which she pronounced "SEE-in". One day she was called up in court by a herald who, reading the scroll and knowing something about Irish orthography, pronounced it "KANE", and it took a while for anybody (including Cein) to realize whom the herald meant.

In other cases, like "garage", American English adopts both the spelling and the pronunciation ("ga-RAZH") of a foreign word, introducing random exceptions to English orthography, while English English adopts the spelling but pronounces it under English orthography as "GA-ridge".

I guess a lot more Americans think they know French than think they know Irish :-)

[full_metal_ox]

PIn other cases, like "garage", American English adopts both the spelling and the pronunciation ("ga-RAZH") of a foreign word, introducing random exceptions to English orthography, while English English adopts the spelling but pronounces it under English orthography as "GA-ridge".

Or, if you’re my dad (U.S.,1930-2010; born in Pennsylvania and grew up in Indiana), “ga-RARJ”. I have no idea how the additional unwritten R got in there.

[hudebnik]

Interesting; where in Indiana?

There are particular American-English regional dialects that insert R's into places they apparently don't belong. Some New York City dialects insert a fictitious Y at the start of a syllable that would otherwise start with a vowel.

I'm pretty sure my father-in-law (born 1920's, grew up variously between Indiana and Chicago) didn't say "ga-RARJ"; I could ask my wife to be sure. But that was northern Indiana, which is a different linguistic zone from southern Indiana.

A key signifier is whether your dad referred to carbonated beverages in general as "soda", "pop", or "Coke"; do you happen to remember that?

[full_metal_ox]

Dad (of Irish and German descent) grew up in Gary, and any further north is Lake Michigan; so did Mom (of Swedish and English descent), but she never said “ga-RARJ”.

(He also persisted in referring to the refrigerator as the “icebox”, but I suspect that’s a generational conditioned reflex. Mom and Dad both vouched for the accuracy of the Depression-era Indiana period color in “A Christmas Story”: dinnerware giveaways at movie theaters; the perpetual epic battle with the coal furnace; the looming focal presence of the steel mill and its industrial fallout.)

Not recalling Dad’s usage offhand; I (1961-; born, raised, and spent most of my life in Dayton, Ohio) have always called the class of carbonated beverages “pop”.

[moonhare]

*blushing* When I read Uris’ Trinity I did the whole book pronouncing Sean as See-an, Sane, or even Shane… You can imagine how my mind reads (read) your name!

And after my quick internet search I see these both mean, roughly, “God is gracious.”

My daughter, Cassy, gets incensed when called Casey…

[conuly]

Sean is also a version of John.

My daughter, Cassy, gets incensed when called Casey…

I would too! All those people need to get hooked on phonics.

[full_metal_ox]

Social tip: when you encounter someone with an unfamiliar name (and is capable of voicing their name), ask. And repeat it to be sure you have it right—and, in the process, you might learn something about the rules of the (at least romanized) source language.

[conuly]

It's tricky to do when calling roll... though this may explain why our substitutes never did call roll but only passed around a paper for us to write our names on.

[conuly]

Whoops, I thought this was a comment in response to a different comment.

I think the problem with the Casey people is that they think they do know how to pronounce the name, and are somehow not in the habit of looking at all the letters.

<3

[8hyenas]

One of my most delightful wild animal encounters was as a child while playing outside near an armadillo den. I guess the babies woke up and got curious because four teeny little precious ones came outside to see what was happening. They ran around me completely unafraid, they'd jump (cute!) and would wrestle my hands like puppies. Every now and then running away to come back and tackle harder.
At some point their nocturnal mom woke up with a few angry grunts and they all turned tail and ran home.
Pure magic

Re: <3

[conuly]

IIRC, every armadillo litter is four identical babies at once.

But, on a more serious note, don't get up close and personal with armadillos again. They're the only other species known to carry leprosy, and contact with armadillos is just about the only way Americans still catch the disease.

Re: <3

[8hyenas]

Yeah, the revenge of the armadillo. Extremely low chance though if you’re not doing something nasty like butchering them or digging up their dens. They’re still a food animal for some people and I think that’s where those couple of a cases a year come from

[calimac]

And how did the child in your anecdote pronounce "Jose"?

[conuly]

Rhymes with toes. He can’t have been older than six.

[brokenallbroken]

I love Mary Trump. She's become one of my favorite YouTubers. I'm getting pretty fond of some of her fellow Nerd Avengers too, although I think I may need to take a break from political meta for a while.

[mindstalk]

I remember reading Tea with the Black Dragon, with a character with surname something like "Súilleabháin" (I cheated and got that off wiki just now), and thinking "this is just Sullivan, isn't it"

[affreca]

My favorite attempt at sounding out Siobhan was a substitute teacher in high school doing roll call who gave it her best guess - Soybean. You could tell by the tone of her voice she new it was wrong, but if you aren't familiar with Irish orthography it's a guess. I still think it would be a fun nickname, but Siobhan did not.

[the_siobhan]

Oh Gods, I got Soybean a lot.

I've always felt that Irish should have it's own alphabet instead of just being pasted onto the one English was using.

[conuly]

Well, English just sort of glommed onto the Roman alphabet. There are advantages to using the same alphabet all your neighbors use.

[mama_kestrel]

How is Siobhan "John"? Last I knew, it was a female name. Confused Kestrel is confused.

[conuly]

Like Joan, Jane, Johanna, and Jeanne it's a female form of the name John.

[med_cat]

As you say re: names :)

Great links, as always, thank you! I'm about to read several others, but the Zambian grandma is a wonderful story, and the armadillo is so much fun :) (and the stuffed animals story is a cute one too)

[conuly]

:)

offtopic

[med_cat]

et voila:

https://1word1day.dreamwidth.org/1038703.html

;))