To think that the teachers should know how to spell Pythagoras?

[CharlieEppes]

DC had a special maths assembly today. At the front of the hall there was a big topic board and in large letters it said Pythagorus and again underneath in smaller text.

Is it just me or should the teachers have picked up on this even if the kids had helped with it?

It's not necessarily about being able to spell or not. If you are going to correct something - you make sure you get it right. If you get it wrong you apologise and learn from it. You don't get all huffy about it.
Of course dyslexic teachers can do an excellent job - as can those who simply can't spell. However I would expect them to acknowledge that they have a weakness in that area and take steps to mitigate. An excellent primary teacher I once knew would get the head teacher to proof read reports and always marked with a dictionary to hand.

Toodledoo - very glad to hear it was clear! No I'm not a teacher but exactly as Happy said - it was how it was taught to me and it's always stayed with me.

if its Greek, surely you can spell it how you like. Like Mohammed, Muhammad kinda thing

Its from a different script

Well my daughter's teacher can't even spell circle ("cercel") so I would be THRILLED if she got anywhere near spelling Pythagoras.

I don't actually mind whether teachers can spell or not - unless they are teaching children a new word, or correcting spelling in the pupils' work, in which case it would be helpful if they know how to spell the word themselves.

Still remember something from years ago, in English class - I wrote a story with horse riding in it - and the teacher changed 'reins' to reigns'.

Mmm. No, I don't think you can spell it how you like.

Greek 'a' and 'u' are distinct sounds. Some sounds would have multiple acceptable transliterations. You could spell it Pithagoras, for example. Or you could spell phonetic 'fonetik'. But I don't think you could really replace an 'a' with a 'u'.

Transliteration is variable because some sounds correspond to several different letters/combinations of letters in the target language (or simply don't really exist, so require an approximation). But there are limits.

Besides which, I would say it does have an accepted English spelling. If you spelt the name of the witch Odysseus meets as 'Kirke,' 99% of people would think you were simply incorrect, and only 1% would acept you might be being a polemically pedantic Classicist (or Ezra Pound). And that's an example where it is phonetically acceptable to transliterate Circe as Kirke!

(NB, I'm only being a geek here - I think the teacher should've looked it up, but I don't think it's gut-wrenchingly awful. Making someone write out wrong spellings is really bad, though!)

I'm now looking at how I spelt Odysseus and wondering if that's wrong ...

I'm pretty sure Odysseus and Ulysses are both correct spellings depending on whether you're going Greek or Roman.

Oh, yes - I mean, I thought I'd spelt the Greek wrongly. You know how you look at a word for too long and it starts to look odd. But glad it is acceptable!

My youngest had 'umbrella' corrected in his literacy book and had to copy 'umberella' ten times at the end. FFS. I just wish they'd check if they aren't really sure, and not rely on Rihanna songs for sounding-out help.

This made me laugh, the Rihanna reference, not the fact that the child had to 'correct' the spelling.

Jeanne is 100% right.

Not 110% and a field of ponies?

(I know that's another one to make hearts sink.)