On 5-Nov-2007, Juho Julkunen <giaotanj@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote in message <MPG.219997672ac4c4f59896a8@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>:
> In article <13itro5gs22ps53@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, on Mon, 5 Nov 2007
> 10:22:29 GMT, <"Jim Heckman" <rot13(reply-to)@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> says...
> >
> > On 3-Nov-2007, Juho Julkunen <giaotanj@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> > wrote in message <MPG.21977607f583b4dc9896a2@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>:
>
> > > > Does make me wonder about Harkonnen, though....
> > >
> > > It looks like an anglicization of Finnish surname Härkönen to me.
> >
> > Maybe, but I can't imagine why whoever anglicized it would double
> > the first 'n'. Especially since presumably he was a native speaker,
> > and a double 'n' there is just wrong, wrong, wrong in Finnish, as
> > I'm sure you're acutely aware.
>
> It might not have been done on purpose. Imagine a line of illiterate
> immigrants and a monoglot clerk.
Ah, yes. I'd forgotten that possibility, even though it's the
stereotypical image. And indeed many immigrants to the US arriving
at Ellis Island in New York Harbor had their names mangled in
precisely that way.
> AFAIK English doesn't have same
> short/long consonant distinction as Finnish.
Not anymore, except in compound words, e.g., "bookcase".
Of course, the spelling still retains the former distinction from
Middle English times. Nowadays, one of the rules taught to
English-speaking children learning to write (and to foreigners
learning English?) is that a single consonant often -- but by no
means always! -- signals a preceding 'long' vowel, and a double
consonant a 'short' one, e.g., "write" vs. "written".
(As in all Germanic languages, there was originally a strong
rhythmic tendency for long vowels before short consonants, and vice
versa. And of course ever since the Great Vowel ****ft at the
beginning of the Modern English era largely replaced vowel length
oppositions with qualitative ones, the terms 'short' and 'long' are
more historical than accurate descriptions of the current state of
affairs.)
> > Hmm..., there aren't any Harkonnen's in my local phone book. Is
> > that spelling actually used anywhere in the English-speaking world?
> > (I'm reading this off line or I'd Google for it myself.)
>
> Tough google.
>
> I found a Steve Harkonnen:
>
> http://steveharkonnen.blogspot.com/
>
> Search on
>
> http://www.whitepages.com/9900/
>
> gives two results for Harkonnen, one of which is Feyd H.
Well, that's interesting. "Feyd" is about as Arabic-looking a name
as possible, and of course we already know Harkonnen doesn't look
Arabic at all.
> 69 hits for Harkonen, though that has duplicates.
So the 'correct' spelling does win out, after all.
--
Jim Heckman
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