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"Shakespeare was the most commonly used spelling in his day, but by the 18th century, the version most favored was Shakespear, and only in the 20th century did
by themartorana 11y ago
"Shakespeare was the most commonly used spelling in his day, but by the 18th century, the version most favored was Shakespear, and only in the 20th century did Shakespeare become the standard. Interestingly, of the six surviving signatures the great man himself left behind, not one is spelled Shakespeare."
He must have gotten it wrong. Thank goodness we've corrected it for him. Not like he was particularly good at English.
- icebraining 11y agoOf the six signatures, three are abbreviations, and the other three don't coincide among themselves. Besides, he did use the modern form when he wrote his name in print, just not in his signature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelling_of_Shakespeare's_name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelling_of_Shakespeare's_name
- themartorana 11y agoOh be quiet with your logic and evidence. In the Romantic and Victorian eras the spelling "Shakspere", as used in the poet's own signature, became more widely adopted in the belief that this was the most authentic version. I guess I lean this way. (I do acknowledge what you said about the man himself spelling his own name differently, makes me wonder why...) But I have always been perplexed about different spellings and pronunciations of proper nouns. My name is Dave in every language, I assure you. Sounds like the Elizabethans were all kinds of lax with spelling!
- davidgay 11y ago> My name is Dave in every language, I assure you. My name is David in English and French. Which brings up the awkward question of whether it's Дъйвид or Давид in Bulgarian.
- vidarh 11y agoEveryone were all kinds of lax with spelling. If you ever get involved with genealogy you will likely learn to hate the extreme levels of inconsistency there will be in written records covering the same person. It's not unusual to e.g. find church records written by the same priest spelling a parishioners name differently in different records, and these were official records.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y agoThat's because spelling was sort-of-phonetic. If it made the sound of the word you wanted, it was okay. In fact there was no concept of standardised correct and consistent spelling.
- DonHopkins 11y agoWell, you know, Prince changed the spelling of his name, too. [1] [1] http://milk.com/wall-o-shame/bruce_font.html http://milk.com/wall-o-shame/bruce_font.html
- mhurron 11y ago> My name is Dave in every language No it most likely is not. For one it is a short form of the name David, so it has already been mangled, and then like any other written word will change how it is written to attempt to show the sounds in the written rules of that language. This can lead to additions of letters or some very strange changes to the spelling of the name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_%28name%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_%28name%29 "Hebrew: דָּוִד, Modern David, Tiberian Dāwîḏ ... In Christian tradition, the name was adopted as Syriac: ܕܘܝܕ Dawid, Greek Δαυίδ, Latin Davidus. The Quranic spelling is داوُد Dāwūd." So just around the Mediterranean, where the name originated, we have (in the English alphabet) Dawid, David, Davidus, Dawud. All for the same name.
- louisswiss 11y agoIt's been a while since my last Greek lesson but isn't Δαυίδ actually 'Danis' and not 'David'?
- taejo 11y agoThat's an upsilon in the middle and a delta at the end.
- themartorana 11y agoI wouldn't respond to any of them. Do you understand my point? I am "Dave" (or David to my mother). That's it. You can spell or pronounce it however you want, but you're speaking of or to someone other than me.
- jobigoud 11y agoWhat if you move to a country where the language doesn't have one of the sound in your name. Like 'D' or 'V'? And you have to transliterate your name to fill forms. It's a common problem for at least Russian and Chinese names which can't be spelled accurately with the roman alphabet. As a concrete example, Japanese doesn't have a native 'V' sound, so your name would be slightly mispronounced.
- MonadQueen 11y agoHere in Israel, your name is דוד.
- nihonde 11y agoIn Japanese, your name is デイブ, which sounds more or less like "deibu".
- rimantas 11y agoI am sure there are languages in which your name is Deivas or Дэйв.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- danellis 11y agoJudging by those spellings, we've also been pronouncing it wrongly. A pronunciation like "shax pear" does seem to have more of a early modern English ring to it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s