Using Foreign Letters

[MarkC]

alt + various 4 digit codes (using the num pad) will bring up all the european letters we could use.

Ōňłý Æ’Å?Å™ Ä? ľīmĭťėÄ? šůbÅŸÄ•Å£ Å?Æ’ ĘųŕÅ?pęąʼn...

(i.e. CP1252, a MS superset of ISO 8859-1) There is no way that all the characters you might need could be encoded in a single byte, and there are plenty of different encodings covering different groups of languages. UTF-8 uses up to four bytes and aims to cover all languages, but there are plenty of systems around which don't handle it well.

[mharky]

OK Mark, which letter were you thinking of that you need to use for you results list?

JKJuggler >>> You are talking bollocks. And you are from HOC as well, interesting.

[jkjuggler]

I'm talking bollocks?

You say: British clubs should spell Norwegian names using Norwegian characters. They don't have to do that for Russian names.

Sounds like bollocks to me.

I'm disappointed in you, mharky. I expected a reasoned argument. Not personal abuse.

[MarkC]

OK Mark, which letter were you thinking of that you need to use for you results list?

I was thinking of a specific language (Czech), as it was when trying to set up a terminal window to display email with Czech characters that I first had to worry about characters beyond Latin-1; this includes ů/Å® and anything with a háÄ?ek (Ä?/ÄŒ, Ä?/ÄŽ, Ä›/Äš, ň/Ň, Å™/Ř, Å¡/Å , Å¥/Ť and ž/Ž).

As far as typing names in results lists goes, Štěpánek and Lukšan are real examples that I've needed. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's non-trivial and depending on the reader's software can be less intelligible than leaving the diacritics off.

[Godders]

It should be a matter of courtesy to spell competitors' names correctly.

Norwegian, Danish and Swedish just have an additional three letters, hardly difficult to use, or to replace with the double letter alternatives.

As Mharky points out this is very different to languages which use an entirely different alphabet.

I am continually embarrassed by the inability of the British media to spell and pronounce foreign names correctly.

[Domhnull Mor]

I, unusually, find myself agreeing, at least in part, with Mharky on this one.

As far as I see it in terms of my own experience, part of the effect is that names are pronounced wrongly. Taking jkjugglers point concerning the comparison between Kiril Nikilov and Oystein Kvaal Osterbo, the modified "spelling" of the first retains at least a resemblance to the correct pronunciation whilst the latter is completely altered. I get pretty noped off myself when my name is split into two (McCarthy - Mc Carthy or worse, M C Carthy) because it has a "funny" second capital letter. I appreciate that this kind of thing can be difficult for organisers etc to cope with but it can be very important PR.

I agree totally with the club abbreviation stuff. I always use the full club name when entering races abroad. Good to see in results lists as well.

[EriOL]

The truth is, most scandinavian people don't seem to care. I don't know how many times I've seen swedish icehockey players sign a multimillion dollar NHL-deal and then go on to play in a shirt without å, ä and ö. How much extra would it have cost to have the dots printed on the shirt? Noooo, these guys would rather be called Sundstrom or Naslund for the rest of their career...

[HOCOLITE]

I didn't expect a banterish comment to lead to a full debate, however I think the major problem might be whether the O software used can cope with the use of different alphabets. Also the volunteer inputting the info probably doesn't have the time to sort through many different alphabets. This said the home nations info should come from the BOF database so if it is wrong the competitor needs to refer to BOF not complain everytime it is wrong. We have experienced one such person who put his 'unfashionable' middle name on the forms for the database and then complained when it appeared on start lists etc. In most cases(allowing for input error) what comes out is what you submitted.

[Ed]

when writing German words/names with "special" characters in them for British people I've just got into the habit of automatically using the alternative version without the special characters - although my letters addressed to Schlobstr. in Bulow did arrive it was probably because it was one of only two streets in the village and the village was the only one with a name roughly like that in the postcode (and yes, it did have a castle in it).

And if you're missing your umlauts in German, you need to be careful: humid and gay are only separated by two little dots.

[SeanC]

I suspect many clubs find it difficult to change their names, perhaps because of all the paperwork needed, or the effort in publicising a new name, or some emotional attachment to the old club name by some club members.

One possibility might be to change the name but not the initials. For some obscure reason, the original founding members of DFOK called the club Darwin Forest Orienteering Klubb. There is no such place in south east london. Instead of people asking where DFOK is that, the name was changed to Darford Orienteering Klubb - at least everyone knows where we are thanks to the tunnel. We're still stuck with the Klubb bit though and newcomers wondering what that's all about.

[DesignatedDriver]

mharky - started as a bit of a rant, but as a fellow ranter i have to agree.


moving away from the club acronym issue and into more general live terms - people have started using acronyms and "txt" speak far too often. it is really quite annoying.

have been in several meetings with work (usually sales) where they have been using acronyms. not knowing what most of these meant i sat next to a seasoned hand and asked him to tell me what they meant. THE FIRST acronym he turned to me and gave me the full description. at the same time the speaker said "for those who don't know it means..." and they both said completely different things.

what hope have you got!!

and then txt speak. a particular bug bear of mine. Gr8t is not a word. anyone who has ever recieved an SMS from me may have noticed i do not use things like this.


but anyway. yes, it should be obvious to an outsider where the club is from, so at the very least they can associate themselves with their local club from day one. but its not just orienteering that falls foul of this.

[FatBoy]

alt + various 4 digit codes (using the num pad) will bring up all the european letters we could use.

Ōňłý Æ’Å?Å™ Ä? ľīmĭťėÄ? šůbÅŸÄ•Å£ Å?Æ’ ĘųŕÅ?pęąʼn...

Can't think of any orienteers with it in their name but there's a couple of Welsh characters that aren't in there:

ŵ ŷ

Though for once I do agree with Mharky - it's worth making an effort to spell names correctly. Also agree we should get out of the British habit of using club abbreviations, although whether Splott Poly Lost Old Timers means any more than SPLOT I don't know...

[mharky]

JKJuggler >>> I have already explained this, but maybe you are finding it a bit difficult.

Kiril Nikolov calls himself Kiril Nikolov, all cyrillic names are spelled with the latin equivilant went they are outside the cyrillic unsing world. It's not a matter of me deciding to spell it that way, that is how it should be spelled.

Øystein Kvaal Østerbø is only ever spelled Øystein Kvaal Østerbø, there are no formal variations for when he is outside the Norwegian speaking world, except perhaps when he enters the cyrillic speaking one...

Have a look at the world ranking list, they seem to be able to get everyones names correct. Infact, they have a link to click if a name is spelled incorrectly.

[EriOL]

Øystein Kvaal Østerbø is only ever spelled Øystein Kvaal Østerbø, there are no formal variations for when he is outside the Norwegian speaking world, except perhaps when he enters the cyrillic speaking one...

In Russia foreign names are spelled as close to the way they are pronounced as possible, which would make "Øystein Kvaal Østerbø" "ЭйÑ?тейн Квол ЭÑ?тербÑ?" or something like that.

(And "McCarthy" would be "Макарти" whether you like it or not.)

[mharky]

Yeah, Kiril wrote my name out for me, and it was basically the same, boring...