[Gllug] Monthly GLLUG grammar report

[Leslie Till]

Chris Bell wrote:
> On Wed 27 Nov, Xander D Harkness wrote:
> 
>>Dylan wrote:
>>
> 
> 
>>Just because there is a great mass of ill-educated peons 'out there' 
>>masquerading as 'the public' does not mean that we must pander to their 
>>lack of will to learn. 
>>
> 
>    My dad was trying to do some research into family history, and complained
> that so few people knew how to spell, or even write, that he often needed to
> widen his searches to cover a range of names which sounded vaguely similar,
> over a range of possible dates. This was not helped by the way that many
> births were only registered if the the child survived for at least a year or
> two.
>    The "correct" spelling of so many words listed in reference dictionaries
> often appears strange, until you hear them spoken in one of the many local
> dialects, and the modern spelling then reflects the original sounds.
> 
> 
Having a Spanish Great Grandmother I have some experience of the above 
problems. Her details, as entered into the census returns, are very 
strange and it took me ages to realise that the census collector was 
probably either deaf or didn't have a clue as to what she was saying.
By reading in 'soundex' mode I think I now have a much better idea of 
the truth. For instance she was known in the family as Sofia but the 
census, which occurred in the same month as her arrival in this country,
has her down as Ocefar which equates, I think, to Josefa.
Similar arguments apply to her surname and place of birth.
All this happened at the time of the Crimean war.
Les Till


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