Why can't anyone write or even say Ystradgynlais correctly?
 

Or for that matter or Llanfairfechan ?

I just figured I'd throw this one in to start another brawl.

:-)

dave

I agree. People are ignoramuses. Or is it ignoramusi in the nominative plural?

I'd bet I can! But it is cold and dark there and rains 24/7, so why would I ever need to. At least those aren't English towns. A big plus for that!

Wel, dw i'n dysgu Cymraeg, so I bet I can say 'em right too. But c'mon, gotta give people a break: Welsh looks pretty intimidating until you start learning it, at which point you realize it's surprisingly phonetic as well as truly lovely.

Pegontheroad wrote: "Or is it ignoramusi in the nominative plural?"

Ignorami.

You didn't know that, so what does that make you?

Padraig, are you completely sure you're right?
http://grammar.about.com/b/2007/08/1...-ignoramus.htm
http://homepages.tesco.net/J.deBoyne...-of-virus.html
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/langu...es/002035.html

I've never come across anyone fail to spell Ystradgynlasis or Llanfairfechan correctly. Neither are difficult - and no uneducated American tosser has set himself up as a self-appointed expert in the correct English for Welsh towns.

The Welsh parallels to Dusseldorf are Conway and Caernarvon.

Now why can't Welsh nationalists spell them properly in English? We happily tolerate North Walians calling their commercial capital Lerpwl when they turn on their quaint dialect to annoy the tourists. Or when they call their national capital Lundain.

If anyone needs to refer to Ystradgynlais (sp! flanner - see me)or Llanfairfechan, chances are they would indeed know both the spelling and the pronunciation. But how would you feel about those of us who don't know our Erse from our elbow mucking about with Dún Laoghaire or Baile Átha Cliath?

I promise to learn spelling and pronunciation (or as close to correct pronunciation as a foreign tongue is capable of) in case I ever plan a trip to these places.

Contribution to Latin nitpicking ;-) : "Ignoramus" is a verb in 1st person plural, meaning "We don't know" - so no Latin plural ending. Since the English language transformed the word into a substantive we'll have to stick with the (ugly) English plural form "ignoramuses".

Flanner, you'll love this...years ago (too many now) when I first traveled to the UK, my girlfriend and I decided where we were going by flipping a coin and having it land on our next destination.

As luck would have it, it landed on this town spelled "Caernafon", (I forget the map, but it had lots of places spelled wrong). So for a couple of days, when people would ask where we were heading to next we would say "Care - no- fawn". They would shake their heads and say "Never hear of it". I have still never figured out how a LL ends up sounding like Kla.

:-)

dave

>I have still never figured out how a LL ends up sounding like Kla.<

It doesn't. Think of Scottish CH and add an L if you want a nearer estimation.

Or a Dutch 'G' with an L if you prefer ;)

The Welsh can't spell Cardiff, Swansea or Newport properly so I don't see what the gripe is.

The thing I like about driving into Wales is that at first the names are English on the top and Welsh on the bottom, then about half-way through, they switch positions.

Good grief! You people are amazing. I was just fooling around with the word "ignoramusi." I had no clue that there was such a word or that there had ever been scholarly disquisitions about it.

Since this is turning into a GTG for <i>ignoramis</i>, someone's gotta do it..try this one for sheer size...included as a contrast with some Norway pix that shows the Lofoten Islands village with the world's shortest name... "A"

http://tiny.cc/dGJXT

sft

just click on back arrow to see "A"