lol

Sign of a mother of a geek when your first thought is Bender off Futurama  *goes to slap son*

JOKE!

There's a Doctor Maida Smellie , public health consultant..

Oh I say      - Randy Bumgardner

A selfish parent's prerogative if the kid's gonna get verbally battered for years. Meh!

I'd swap 'selfish' for 'incredibly stupid'.

I'd swap perogative for prerogative but then what do we know!

I had a "Konah" in my literacy group that was Connor...the thing with phonetic spellings is they only work in your own accent.  Connor (which I know is Anglicised-to the Irish posters here ) is only "Konah" if you are from NE England surely, most accents would pronounce the "r"....well off the top of my head they would.

Must admit I'm a bit of an uptight curmudgeon when it comes to name spellings.  I prefer the originals then 2nd place goes to Anglicised, anything other than that I get a bit...wanky...about

I would too but spelling police we are not.

I saw the error but couldn't be arsed to edit (it's a lengthy process for me for some reason) - I knew that someone else would be kind enough to correct it for me - cheers.

Of course not Prometheus! I suppose I was just considering your point regarding illiteracy, and although not directly connected to my post, was still in the same field.

Well if we are on that subject, having just admitted to having kids in a literacy group, I'd like to point out they were very young and I'd never try to teach older kids coz my English is shockingly crap

No problem! x

Seriously, there's no need for such pettiness on here. We all make typos. This forum is suprisingly free of anally retentive saddos which is why I like it.

I found Jovan on a list of Jamaican baby names.

That doesn't mean you can only call babies that.

Have you accepted Rachael yet, Prom?

Not in this lifetime

Nowt wrong with your English woman! not in the 7 odd years I've seen your offerings anyway! I'm not overly fussed about who spells what in what way (anymore) - I just find it amusing when someone is attempting to patronise or take the higher ground and doesn't spell certain words correctly. Kinda makes a big feck off epic fail of their intention

(NOT that Soozywoo was attempting to patronise in her post I hasten to add)

Evening/morning Blizzaey

Apologies in advance for my presence, then

Eveorning Leccy, like!

Not presents, Karma?

What do you think this is - bloody Bethlehem? Did you not see the emergency budget yesterday woman? *tuts*

I haven't a clue about any of the rules, especially punctuation.  I wasn't taught any of it, I think it was maybe my generation where Teachers got obsessed with content (they still are) over accuracy. 

I have a sad admission to make. Because of this thread I've been reading about Welsh first names all night and feeling sad I didn't give my kids Welsh names

Hello though, but

Moi Perish the thought.

Is there really any need?  Moi 

Hey, no offense meant at all. I just don't like people being pulled up on their spelling. It seems to be a kind of internet thing to do. My comments weren't aimed at you at all.

Sorry - I just spotted this, and it did make me LOL.
This is of course the joke behind Shaun the Sheep. For anyone who's been on another planet and never seen "A Close Shave": the lamb had all his wool sheared off (i.e. he was "shorn"), so Wallace called him "Shaun".
TBH, that joke always rather annoyed me, because where I come from, we would pronounce the "r" in "shorn", so the two words wouldn't sound the same...

Offence *runs*

I was joking, honestly!

Seriously I was just being a dick...No offense meant (and maybe you're American in which case you were correct anyway)

No, I've just been reading too much Ameri-speak on the internet *kills self*.

Cheers! Pleased to make your acquaintance, Prometheus

It's that phonetic thing again because in County Durham Sean, Shaun, Shawn and shorn are identical.

It's why I'm really against the campaign to change English into phonetic spelling.  I read an article sometime last year on the BBC website where the advocate of "progressive" (they called it) phonetic spelling was a Midlander and everything just looked so wrong to me!

It's the same dahn sowff.

Aye but what about "our"

PS just realised Sean, Shawn and Shaun are likely to be the same given they are the same feckin' name...but in my enthusiasm I ran away with the fact some folks might do them differently

Are/our!

ea/aw/au never mind.

Omg Blizzie ignored me on the internet providings

Owwer!

Which is why phonetic spelling is eeeeeeeeeeevil!

Did her providings confusings your internettings? Fonejacker. Love him.

Going off on more than a slight tangent - I have a couple of South African friends and am baffled and amazed at the way they write their language. Erm, and that's it really

I think it's cos I wasn't offering any free ringdings

(And I heart the fonejacker too)

Well yes: in Scotland, the failure to pronounce "R"s properly has long been perceived as a generally "English" thing, and has been a bit of a bone of contention because the reverse attitude was that the Scots' tenedency to pronounce their "R"s was perceived as "bad" English. One infamous example that annoyed the Scottish press in the 80's was a dictionary for foreigners that gave the correct pronunciaton of "door" as "daw".


The Proclaimers really went to town on this with their first single, "Throw the "R" Away":
"I'm just going to have to learn to hesitate
To make sure my words on your Saxon ears don't grate
But I wouldn't know a single word to say
If I flattened all the vowels and threw the 'R' away"


I used to joke with my (Southern) English friends about how they pronounced the words "saw" and "sore" exactly the same way. To me, they're completely different: not just with respect to the "R", but the whole vowel sound.