Irish Translation Forum

Antóin wrote: "Ó Deá" is the modern spelling and the most often used to the best of my knowledge - I remain open to correction.

I can only say that as one in possession of this name and who is therefore liable to notice it where it occurs, I have never seen any such "modern" version. The thing is, people commit errors of spelling in Irish as well as in English, and people with weak Irish are more prone to mistakes in that language than in English. Mistakes are everywhere. I was taught to spell it as I described—Ó Deághaidh—both at home and at school. There are many teachers in my family, too, who possess the fastidiousness about spelling that is the mark of their profession, and they spell their family name as I stated. Also, the correct spelling I confirmed is the one used by the former Chief Herald of Ireland, the scholar Edward MacLysaght, in his works on Irish names—which does not surprise me.

Antóin wrote:Why are you resurrecting a thread 2 years old.

It harms no-one to respond to a question even long after it has been posed because it might strike the questioner to return, as I have just done to this post; or someone who found the discussion through a search programme might find the newer contributions helpful. One of the great strengths of the internet is its memory, a treasury for all to consult. What does not interest you may give satisfaction to others.

Ó Deá is the modern spelling as given in Mac Lysaght, You are free to choose whichever you like, of course as is anyone else with that name. There is no right or wrong here, just preference

While I personally agree that reviving old threads to correct misinformation is not necessarily a bad thing, in this case I think your proximity to the subject matter is actually clouding your judgment and making you somewhat biased.

I don't have direct access to MacLysaght, but Beagles statement above that MacLysaght gives Ó Deá as the modern spelling pretty well negates your assertion that Ó Deághaidh "is the one used by the former Chief Herald of Ireland, the scholar Edward MacLysaght, in his works on Irish names". It appears he gives both.

It is not surprising that all of the people in a particular family tend to spell their name the same way. However, that doesn't establish prevalence one way or another. The only real way to establish which form is more prevalent would be to examine statistics, preferably the national census but in the absence of such, here is the results of a quick Google search:

"Ó Deá" - 6,490 results
"Ó Deághaidh" - 2,260 results

Admittedly Google is not a great sample space but at the very least it can be seen from this that your assertion that the "modern" form doesn't exist or is not used is clearly wrong.

The fact is that your spelling represents the "traditional" form but many people have adopted the modern form, as is their right. This is not a "spelling mistake", it is spelling reform. People are also free to ignore the reforms and retain the traditional spellings if they so wish, especially with regard to names, but calling one or the other "wrong", is just plain myopic.

As with many things in real life, there can be more than one correct answer.

Breandán wrote:..here is the results of a quick Google search:

"Ó Deá" - 6,490 results
"Ó Deághaidh" - 2,260 results

You're right, Google is both useful and useless. Let us look closer at your search for "Ó Deá". I ran that through Google and among the results returned by that character string, were the following representative errors, among others:

"Ó'Dea" (incorrect apostrophe, no accent on the a)
"ó?dea" (all lower case, with a question mark, no accent on the a)
"ó dea" (all lower case, no accent on the a)
"ó Dea" (lower case ó, no accent on the a)

These are a few sample errors on just one of the results pages. There are many others. Yet these are counted as "confirmations" of "Ó Deá", which of course they are not. They do not match the search string. Thus, the claim "6,490 results" is invalid.

Also, I have MacLysaght open in front of me and he confirms the correct spelling I cited. Here is a picture: http://s16.postimage.org/kc92c1zur/lysaght.jpg

Beagle wrote:Ó Deá is the modern spelling as given in Mac Lysaght

That could not be correct as there must be an accent on the a.

O'Dea wrote:You're right, Google is both useful and useless. Let us look closer at your search for "Ó Deá". I ran that through Google and among the results returned by that character string, were the following representative errors, among others:

You generated those errors because you didn't run the search the way I did. In any case, there was more than ample evidence of use of Ó Deá to show that your assertion that it isn't used is simply incorrect.

Breandán wrote:You generated those errors because you didn't run the search the way I did.

Now, Breandán, that is not a fair assertion. You simply don't know how I conducted my search.

But I will tell you: I copied into my clipboard directly from your earlier posting the text that you said you searched for in Google and I pasted your text directly from my clipboard into the Google search box, letter for letter what you wrote, including your quotation marks. I honoured your text as best I could by copying it exactly—I did not read what you wrote and type a copy, I copied and pasted—a true digital facsimile. It was a precise copy of what you wrote, Breandán, therefore I tell you—I take exception to your attempt to denigrate my method because my method took its cue from what you yourself said.

If it were true that I did not replicate your actions accurately it could only be because you failed to describe what you did precisely enough for another to repeat your experiment.

In any event, my search was completely valid as I asked Google to report how often it found "Ó Deá" (including the quote marks). That method is impossible to invalidate.

O'Dea wrote:I can only say that as one in possession of this name and who is therefore liable to notice it where it occurs, I have never seen any such "modern" version.

Although the Google search does turn up a certain amount of noise, it still represents ample evidence of the use of Ó Deá which you refuse to believe exists. This is exemplary of your myopic stance with regard to the name.

Clearly you are not here to inform people but to misinform them and push your own agenda. The bulk of your argument is "My family spells it this way so only this way is correct." I leave it to others to decide if your "evidence" is biased or not.

This conversation is no longer serving any purpose. At this point, I'm going to invoke forum policy against resurrecting old threads and lock this.

Redwolf