[PLUG] HOWTO: Spelling Russell's name.

[Russell Senior]

By way of preface, I am not directing this at anyone in particular,
but I just want to say that I have noticed a pervasive practice of
shortening my name by a letter, and I find this (perhaps irrationally)
irritating, and I don't really understand the practice. I recall that
Randal Schwartz has also become irritated when people add an extra L
on the end of his name (his has one L). I have been trying to let go
and let it slide, but the misspellings are not an isolated occurrence,
and so I feel like I have to say something or people will think it is
acceptable.

Here, I spell it out in practically every message I send, so the
correct spelling is not difficult to find. It is maybe less irritating
than it is a curious and surprisingly general phenomenon, and I wonder
if our resident linguist (or any others) might have some insight to
share. And maybe plug-talk might be a better place to explore that. Or
maybe I can consult a therapist and work out my issues that way.

Exact Steps:
a) One R, often capitalized;
b) One u (you can let go of the Shift key here, unless you are upset
about something);
c) Two s's, your finger is right there, just give it another press;
d) One e;
e) Two l's.

There. Done.

EOT

[Keith Lofstrom]

Post by Russell Senior
By way of preface, I am not directing this at anyone in particular,

And the last name is spelled Señor, yes? In vim, you can
type the diacritical tilde in the eñe with ctrl-k / n / ~

Lofstrom has been spelled Loffstrom, Lastrum, even
Lostroni. Kieth is common as well.

I suggest you all get out your checkbooks and practice
writing "Keith Lofstrom" on the "Pay to the order of" line.
You can also practice your numeral writing skills in the
little box after the $ symbol. See how many numerals you
can fit in there. Describe the numerals you used on the
next line.

Sign your work, and send it to me, so I can show off your
calligraphic talents to my friends at the bank. :-)

Keith

PS - some folks write cents with superscript. I've tried
to explain exponents to my friends at the bank, but so far
I have not succeeded. $2⁹⁹ enables much. On the other
hand, $0⁹⁹ is a big fat nothing.

PPS - "⁹" is superscript in my text-based email client.

PPPS - fun fact: 2⁹⁹ $1 bills, one gram each, would weigh
106 times as much as the Earth, and 10% more than Saturn.
No sudden withdrawals, please.

PPPPS - 3⁹⁹ $1 bills weighs 30 times as much as the Milky
Way galaxy. If you put them all in your wallet, it would
collapse into a supermassive black hole. Like my wallet.

PPPPPS - can someone drag this even further off topic?

[Rich Shepard]

Post by Keith Lofstrom
Lofstrom has been spelled Loffstrom, Lastrum, even
Lostroni. Kieth is common as well.

And I've had people spell my last name Shepherd. All I can do is bark and
bite them on the ankles.

Rich

[Ben Koenig]

Pronunciation errors are what get me.

Koenig is often pronounced "koe-ing". My last name also has different
pronounciations for the same spelling.

To make things worse I use an online alias that millenials are not able to
parse properly. It seems like reading comprehension has failed among newer
generations and will be replaced by AI.

Post by Rich Shepard

Post by Keith Lofstrom
Lofstrom has been spelled Loffstrom, Lastrum, even
Lostroni. Kieth is common as well.

And I've had people spell my last name Shepherd. All I can do is bark and
bite them on the ankles.
Rich
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[King Beowulf]

Post by Russell Senior
By way of preface, I am not directing this at anyone in particular,
but I just want to say that I have noticed a pervasive practice of
shortening my name by a letter, and I find this (perhaps irrationally)
irritating, and I don't really understand the practice. I recall that
Randal Schwartz has also become irritated when people add an extra L
on the end of his name (his has one L). I have been trying to let go
and let it slide, but the misspellings are not an isolated occurrence,
and so I feel like I have to say something or people will think it is
acceptable.
Here, I spell it out in practically every message I send, so the
correct spelling is not difficult to find. It is maybe less irritating
than it is a curious and surprisingly general phenomenon, and I wonder
if our resident linguist (or any others) might have some insight to
share. And maybe plug-talk might be a better place to explore that. Or
maybe I can consult a therapist and work out my issues that way.
a) One R, often capitalized;
b) One u (you can let go of the Shift key here, unless you are upset
about something);
c) Two s's, your finger is right there, just give it another press;
d) One e;
e) Two l's.
There. Done.
EOT
_______________________________________________
PLUG mailing list
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Yo! Russ, Russ-man, Rusellator, Russmeister!

I feel your pain but it could be worse. When I was in high school
Saturday Night Live hit the scene. As I rarely stayed up late to watch
TV (I was a bit of an egghead early to bed/rise type), it took me weeks
to realize the Koenig -> Conehead jokes at my expense. I would have
much preferred a dropped or added letter.

Of course we have the obligatory wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_(given_name)

"Russell is a male given name, that originated from the surname Russell,
which in turn derives from the Anglo-Norman russel (Old French rossel)
"red-haired or red-skinned", from Anglo-Norman rus (Old French ros) "red
hair color" or "reddish skin" and suffix -el[1] Russell may be shortened
to Russ or Rusty; the latter is also a nickname for someone with red hair."

-Ed

[Denis Heidtmann]

Yes, Mr. R, spelling is a dying art, or at least attention to it. Your
name is not the only victim.
But imagine having a name with one "n" commonly spelled with two "n"s, and
a last name with the opposite. I have even been called Denise. Take heart
that Russell does not have a feminine form.

-Denis

Post by Russell Senior
By way of preface, I am not directing this at anyone in particular,
but I just want to say that I have noticed a pervasive practice of
shortening my name by a letter, and I find this (perhaps irrationally)
irritating, and I don't really understand the practice. I recall that
Randal Schwartz has also become irritated when people add an extra L
on the end of his name (his has one L). I have been trying to let go
and let it slide, but the misspellings are not an isolated occurrence,
and so I feel like I have to say something or people will think it is
acceptable.
Here, I spell it out in practically every message I send, so the
correct spelling is not difficult to find. It is maybe less irritating
than it is a curious and surprisingly general phenomenon, and I wonder
if our resident linguist (or any others) might have some insight to
share. And maybe plug-talk might be a better place to explore that. Or
maybe I can consult a therapist and work out my issues that way.
a) One R, often capitalized;
b) One u (you can let go of the Shift key here, unless you are upset
about something);
c) Two s's, your finger is right there, just give it another press;
d) One e;
e) Two l's.
There. Done.
EOT
_______________________________________________
PLUG mailing list
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

[John Jason Jordan]

On Sat, 17 Nov 2018 18:32:58 -0800

Post by Denis Heidtmann
Yes, Mr. R, spelling is a dying art, or at least attention to it. Your
name is not the only victim.

This has been caused by the ubiquitous spelling checkers that come with
all kinds of technological devices these days. People no longer need to
learn to spell, so schools have massively cut down on the amount of
time they devote to it. Unfortunately, most spelling checkers do a poor
job with proper names. Better we should just regularize English
orthography, a system that is currently over 400 years out of date.
Maybe an open source orthography?

Post by Denis Heidtmann
But imagine having a name with one "n" commonly spelled with two "n"s,
and a last name with the opposite. I have even been called Denise.
Take heart that Russell does not have a feminine form.

There are feminine forms (e.g., Rossina), it's just that they are not
commonly encountered in the English speaking world.

More interesting to me is the history of Indo-European reudh 'red' and
what it evolved into. In Greek it became ερυθρος [eruθros], known to
medical people as the root for erythrocyte (red blood cell). In Latin
the word survived in the form rufus 'red-headed,' but also became rubor
'red.' In the Germanic languages it thrived, giving us modern German
'rot,' Anglo-Saxon 'read' (-> ModE 'red'). The modern Latin languages,
lost the Latin forms except in low-frequency compounds, but then they
borrowed the Germanic form from the Visigoths during their various
invasions of the Roman empire. The 't' of the Visgoth form lenited to
's' (t -> ts -> s is a common phonological change over time), which
resulted in Italian 'rosso.' In the western Romance languages (those
spoken between the English Channel and Gibraltar) the 's' became voiced
to [z], then moved back to [ʒ], where it stayed - e.g., French 'rouge.'
That is, except for Spanish where it did not become voiced, and moved
back to [ʃ], and later to [x], resulting in 'rojo.'

So now Russell knows more about his name than even he wanted to know.