Also referring to the common misuse of the apostrophe, as pointed out in the book EatsShootsAndLeaves.
Q: How does a person with an Apostrophe in his/her name (e.g. Paddy O'Furniture) make a WikiName out of it without:
- losing the apostrophe and
- destroying preferred capitalization.
A: He or she doesn't. However, there are alternatives:
- PaddyOfurniture (destroys capitalization)
- PaddyOhFurniture (messes up name)
- PaddyOapostropheFurniture (fun to type)
- PaddyO%27Furniture (let wiki work it out)
- http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?PaddyO'Furniture (almost works -- but you can't create the page)
- PaddyOfFurniture (Isn't that what the "O'" stands for, anyway?)
Apostrophe - The Si'n of Omission
How necessary
the apostrophe
so small so cute so quaint
it fits between the letters
to point out where they ain't
--Phlip
"Once upon a time, somebody say to me"
This is the dog talkin' now
"What is your, conceptual, continuity?"
"Well I told 'em right then", Fido said
"It should be easy to see
"The crux of the biscuit
is the apostrophe"
Well you know, the man that was talking to the dog
looked at the dog, and he said
Sort of staring in disbelief
"You can't say that"
he said
"It doesn't, and you can't, I won't, and it don't
it hasn't, it isn't, it even ain't, and it shouldn't
it couldn't"
Hey, what about those of us with periods embedded within our names? (BrianStPierre) We've lost punctuation too!
The convention is that "st." is an abbreviation for "stone", but no dot is used when Saint is abbreviated to "St". Doubtless, a few people choose to flout that convention, but let's just encourage them to quietly drop the dot.
And we of the 'Land of the Umlaut'? I have to rape my name to JuergenErhard, when in fact it's Jürgen Erhard. (Yeah, that's a minor problem in my case since "Juergen" is not a valid spelling anyway.)
Or people anywhere where accented letters are used? I doubt RenéGade would like to be called ReneGade. -- RhesaRozendaal
Imagine the pain of those with spaces in their names. To paraphrase Orwell, "all names are mangled, but some names are more mangled than others."
Try to think of it like a virtual Ellis Island, where sometimes you have to change your name to gain entry if the immigration official finds your original name too difficult.
http://www.ellisisland.com/history.html
Why http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?PaddyO'Furniture doesn't work:
http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?edit=PaddyO%27Furniture
gives the error:
The WikiWiki Server Can't Process Your Request
Edit: improper name: PaddyO'Furniture .
This information has been logged.
We are sorry for any inconvenience.
"O" and "Mac" are both of Gaelic origin. "O" means "grandson of" (not simply "of" as mentioned above); "Mac" means "son of". Personally, I wouldn't have invented "O"; "MacMac" is clearly the appropriate refactoring. -- ConanDalton