To cringe when people use accented letters wrongly? (light-hearted)

[CaptainBinker]

Aargh, this really does my head in!

I have a couple of friends who are lovely people but have obviously been playing around with their keyboards and have noticed umlauts - they are now spelling their babies' names with them... Using an O with umlaut because it looks like a shocked face and a U because it looks smiley

Plus there's others who randomly add acute accents because they think it makes them look more mysterious and sophisticated but haven't got the first idea how to pronounce them. I work as a languages teacher (which probably explains why I'm so annoyed!) and once taught two brothers, one called Shaun and the other called Sean (acute accent on the 'e', can't do it on phone ) and didn't realise they were the same name because apparently if it has an accent it must be a foreign mysterious name!

I know I'm being a ridiculous pedant and there's far bigger problems out there but...Aibu to inwardly cringe to myself?

[PervCat]

its a debâcle

[CanadianJohn]

ImThinkingBoutMyDoorbell you are right (alt+0232 and alt+0233 on my keyboard, easy to make a mistake.

[MadameDefarge]

I know of twin boys called Daniel and Daneil.

[wowfudge]

Rhienne - the airlines' systems are doing what you do in German if you don't type the accents. But I know what you mean: when their system doesn't recognise accents you often end up with gobbledegook.

[Rhienne]

Haha, Misspontypine, same here!

What gets me is when the airlines can't handle accents when they print tickets, but instead of replacing ö with o, ä with a, they often put oe, or ae instead. Then the person travels to a country where these letters and replacements are unknown, and gets pulled up because their tickets don't match their passport. Happened to my boss a couple of times when we were travelling together.

I refused point-blank to consider any names for my kids with accented characters, or in this case, letters that don't appear in the english alphabet. Too hard in this age of globalisation, or englishisation.

[riksti]

Bound - ö is pronounced a bit like the 'e' in 'nerd'. And ü is... The closest I can think of is the French pronunciation of 'u' in déjà vu (not the way you would say the phrase in English).

Sorry, I'm really rubbish at this

[Caitlin17]

And "Jewan" is correct for the poem.

My mother told me she came across a "Gisele" prounced with a hard g

[Caitlin17]

Esmé, the accent isn't over the first e, that would make no sense. It's like Irené from the Forsyte Saga, although I'm convinced Galsworthy made the name up.

[BoundandRebound]

I don't know how to pronounce the motley Crüe with the accents and want to...

Please

[Mandy2003]

That's amazing nerdgirl72 and badtime, I've never met anyone else who's heard of it. My friend was from a Traveller family, it might be a tradition with them too then? But I'm sure Huggy must definitely be an error!

[TallulahBetty]

Juan as Jewann reminds me of a story that an old teacher told us at school. She taught a little Hugh, pronounced "Huggy" - the parents liked the way it looked but had no clue how to say it

[misspontypine]

I live in a country that uses öäå. My dp's name and tge name of the town we live in both have multiple ä and å (s) in, when my family write to us they just put dots over all tge vowels. It's cute really, at least they are trying!

[nerdgirl72]

Badtime, I have heard Germaine Greer pronounce Don Juan like that but was not sure of reason, makes sense. Thankyou!

[Trills]

Sounds like they are doing the computer equivalent of drawing a little heart above i's or j's.

They are not "using it wrongly" as if they think that's how the word is spelled, they are just having fun with the characters that are available to them.

[badtime]

'Juan' used to be pronounced 'Ju-wan' in English - consider Lord Byron's poem 'Don Juan', where it is usually pronounced 'Ju-wan' (to rhyme with 'true one', as in the text).

[CaptainBinker]

Don't get what you mean PervCat

Have you been watching too much daytime tv? :)

(Saw your other thread - totally agree! I'm spending my mat leave watching it and it's totally mind-numbing...)

[PervCat]

grrr at " lighthearted"

[nerdgirl72]

I know lots of "Jewanns", spelt Juan. It is a traditional Manx name. Hilarious.

[Methe]

Ì döñt r?ä??? ?ëë th? prôb??m.

(Very easy to do on an ïpäd)

[Wibblypiglikesbananas]

Absolutely agree OP. As a fellow linguist, it's not quirky or cool or cute to deliberately misspell a name (which is essentially what this is, each accented letter having a different sound). It's just ignorant.

Mandy - I am however ROFL at 'Jewann' - seriously?! That is hilarious!

[riksti]

I'm Estonian and Õ Ä Ö and Ü are letters with a completely separate pronunciation from O A and U. It irritates me when these letters are used to make names more exciting in English. Mainly because I automatically try and pronounce them and that's obviously not what was intended. Like Mötley Crüe... I'm sure they'd hate how stupid their name sounds in my head.

[elQuintoConyo]

A-ha, sorry Captain , misread your op

So, something along the lines of Spóngebôb Squãrepänts is obviously ridiculous - although funny! I appreciate in real life it'd be bonkers.

Didn't Denise Van Outen add in the 'van' to jazz up her name? Perhaps christening a child Deníse would be trying for the same caché ?

[BlackbeltinBS]

Is that a Chloé, like the designer label? Or I know a ésmee (obviously with a capital, she's not ésmee e cummings). The accent/capital just makes it worse.

[Pagwatch]

My name has an é.

Most people can't pronounce it and never include it when they spell it.
When they ask me to spell my name if I include 'the final e has an accent' they look at me like I'm a twat,if I don't they looked baffled and then add a y

It's really tiresome.

[whoneedssleepanyway]

I know where you are coming from OP.

Some close relatives have a little girl and they spell her name with é at the end (which would be pronounced - "ay", think purée) but they pronouce her name "ee" at the end. When I asked why they had the accent they said it was because they thought it looked better than way when written down.....