CHAPTER 57

Names

Generally speaking, names do not follow spelling rules and we should not expect them to do so. Many

names have been modernized and anglicized over the years, but there are just as many that retain their
ancient spellings. Such names can be both an inconvenience and a matter of great personal pride to their
owners.
The names of foreign countries and cities do not always translate well, especially if they must be
adapted from a different alphabet. When we browse through old atlases, we can see that the spellings of
many cities and countries have changed a number of times over the years.

(^) There are difficulties involved when we do try to make a foreign name fit English spelling. Sometimes
the name is anglicized, and Italia becomes Italy, or España becomes Spain, but usually we attempt to
produce something that is close to the original, no matter what the spelling. If we applied strict spelling
rules to Iraq, for example, it would have to be Irack because in English the q may not stand alone and a k
does not usually follow a short vowel. But Iraq it is.
Over the centuries, a whole host of names, both English and foreign, have become part of our everyday
language. Thanks to Louis Pasteur, our milk is pasteurized. Thanks to Captain Charles Boycott, we
boycott what we don’t like. Thanks to a Cervantes hero, we consider some things quixotic. Thanks to a
titled Englishman who wouldn’t stop playing cards to eat his dinner, we eat sandwiches. There are quite a
few fascinating books on this subject. Most of these name-words lose their capital letters as they cease to
be proper nouns. The element einsteinium, for example, has lost it, even though the word Fahrenheit still
retains the capital f.
Whether the spelling changes or not, whether the pronunciation changes or not, another useful word has
been acquired and yet another exotic jewel has been added to that treasury of words that we call English.