What's the origin of this common misspelling?
Am I going to be insulted for asking this question?
2006-10-02 10:48:13 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
That bugs me too. Even Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) does it and it gets by the editors.
I'm guessing it's because we don't have the D-H-I letter sequence in English. People know about the country Ghana, so maybe that's where they get the G-H (or from "ghost", "ghoul", "ghetto"...) At least they don't spell it "Gondy". :)
2006-10-02 12:04:09 · answer #1 · answered by kslnet 3 · 3⤊ 0⤋
You should certainly not be insulted for asking this very relevant question. Who would like his name mispronounced? And when it comes to a person who's known as the father of the nation for a nation of a billion people, you know you're in trouble if you do mispronounce or misspell the name. On to the answer...I think most people both mispronounce and misspell the word because the sound of DH is alien to most languages. An Indian can pronounce it very easily, but not a non Indian. Since people tend to mispronounce it, they then tend to misspell it to. DH is replaced with GH and GH is pronounced as G (as in ghost) and the name becomes GANDI...which, to an Indian ear sounds terrible!
2006-10-05 16:21:05 · answer #2 · answered by the_sunil 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It's because people pronounce his last name as Gauhon-E Ghond-E. They remember the "a" and the "I" and make the adjustments there. I have never heard his name pronounced correctly, even from Indians.
2006-10-02 18:10:32 · answer #3 · answered by gregory_dittman 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Here's a question: Why do people use the term "how come" when they could easily use the word "why"? What does "how come" mean? Is it just another example of the widespread ignorance of our lazy society?
2006-10-02 18:37:38 · answer #4 · answered by t_o_w_e_r_i_n_g 3 · 0⤊ 2⤋
just ignorance
2006-10-02 17:52:10 · answer #5 · answered by svirelka 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
IT HAS A SILENT "H"!!!!
2006-10-02 18:09:56 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋