Dewie2

Since you're so interested in my activity here[1], you may notice that my very first, apparently terrible and flame-inducing post was about me pointing out that an article spelled someone's name wrong[2], modulo transliteration. Now you might argue that I was wrong, but do you really think that was such a terrible, unproductive and antagonistic post? The next mass of downvotes came when I replied sarcastically to someone who wrote that my concerns/arguments were "stupid" and not worthwhile. That provocative post towards me was, of course, not downvoted. My follow-up to my original, downvoted, post was at first well-recieved[3], but then creeped down to 1 again for some reason.

I'm not a victim by any means, and I'm sometimes an asshole. But maybe you should stop taking Karma at face value and stop believing that this community is beyond reproach. If you want to go through my history - which on this account is quite short - at least do it better.

[1] And your profile says nothing about you being a mod.

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9440971

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9441604

Because "guys" is gender discrimination? Give me a break. Might as well call ~everyone who speaks the Spanish language massive sexists while you're at it.

I guess it is if you're oversensitive to everything that might be construed as sexist, through any historical, cultural etc. link. Like some people are oversensitive about bodily functions.

Besides, some groups of people might be put off by such crass analogies. You don't want to exclude those people, do you Ygg2?

First it was dry and boring, and then someone mentioned "poop" and then the same subject was hilarious! I don't get it...

> , but I staunchly refuse to edit code with any tool that requires using a mouse.

Like Acme.

Thank you for mentioning this. It's frustrating that every time someone complains about Go's error-handling style, the first assumption is that the complainer then necessarily has to prefer exceptions. In truth, errors-as-values are very elegant in languages like Haskell IMO. And errors-as-values are not at all something that Go has managed to put back on the roadmap in a modern language against the grain of everyone else (the "exception people") as many seem to imply, including Rob Pike in his "errors as values" article.

Thanks for you reasonable reply.

Whether, in the age of Unicode, it _should_ be, is another question.

Characters like this aren't so exotic that the relatively new prolifeteration of the Unicode standards have made them possible to type and render - 8-bit ASCII contains "æøå". Not to mention all the other text encodings that at the least try to incorporate characters from Western European languages (Norwegian in this case being Western European).

Though I guess "disagreement" between text encodings about what is "å" has long been an issue, in a more cross-platform setting.

As an English writer I have two problems of politeness to you. [...] Another is conveying to my readers how to pronounce your name properly.

I'd say that that is a lost cause in the written medium, across languages. No matter how you choose to write this particular name, American readers are probably going to be confused as to how to pronounce it. And if they think they've got a good idea, they are likely to be wrong. But that doesn't have to detract from the reading experience, since you don't have to "think out loud" words that you read. And I don't think that how the readers think the name is pronounced[1], in their own minds, is a matter of politeness to the owner of the name.

If the pronouncication of the name is important in some context, the writer can always try to write out what the phonetic equivalent would be, using syllables from English words. And then you're again free to write the name in the original, "proper" way throughout the text.

[1] "knaws-goard"? :)

I'm surprised that this turned out to be such a vile thing to bring up, judging by how it has been recieved. I always had the impression that places like HN were quick to point out linguistic and grammatical issues, even when they might be viewed as pedantic. And even when the issue that is brought up is subjective, or otherwise based on (linguistic) ideology - like what might be the case in this case. Like for example use of gender-neutral pronouns, which seems to go contrary to normal use, but has some compelling arguments going for them. And although I might be wrong in my assertion that the author shouldn't refer to someone by such a spelling, am I really so pig-headed and obnoxious that I should be punished so harshly, vote-wise? I am not really whining about down votes (they can't be taken back, anyway), but asking if someone should be down voted so much for simply being wrong about something? And being wrong without being willfully ignorant or lazy (like, to give a bland but current example, people who refuse to vaccinate their children in spite of monumental evidence compelling them to do so).

Or is perhaps the issue that the linguistic side-track is about a non-English language, on an English speaking site, and so is judged to be too off topic? In that case all I can say is that is completely on me if only that initial mention was enough to be too off topic. But it is only partly on me when considering the whole discussion, since discussions take on a life on their own. Especially when they turn out to be somewhat controversial. :)

Yes. This is common all over the place. Nobody really cares.

Source: I'm Norwegian.

As you've probably guessed, as am I. So then we have two apparent Norwegians (me and uer haakon) who cares. So maybe "somebody cares", after all? :)

Well, thats a strawman as i read it. You can't compare "normal" names and names with special letters in them. It does not really make sense.

Right, normal with scare quotes. What is that supposed to mean? So then, "Ch" is not "special" compared to "å" simply because of some technical limitation? Because "å" is somewhat distinct to the Scandinavian languages? Why is "Christian" and "Kristian" normal, distinct names, while the use of "aa" does not produce distinct names? In fact, as you can see in this thread, some people name their child "Håkon", others name them "Haakon". "aa" is not simply something you throw in as a replacement for "å" in names.

This is a Danish example, but so be it: Many Danish places have gone over to using "aa" instead of "å". So this was a deliberate decision, not simply "we just spell it however we want". They had to make a decision. In constrast, Språkrådet[1] of Norway does apparently not want to do the same for places like "Ålesund", for example. So at least as far as Språkrådet is concerned, the use of "å" or "aa" in names does matter and they consider them to be distinct "characters". Not simply shallow pseudo-typographical conventions.

"Ch" is not really a (compound) character in the Norwegian language, as in Norwegian words (outside of, perhaps, loan words). And yet, we respect people's names enough to call people who are "Christian" as "Christian"; not "Kristian". Did people who named their child "Christian" miss the "k" letter on their keyboard? Most likely not. Yet they chose that spelling, and we respect that.

[1] http://www.nrk.no/norge/_-ikke-stedsnavn-med-aa-i-norge-1.70...

As i said, this is quite common in Norway. Nobody really minds it at all.

Yes, your idea that your experiences totally overrides and eclipse my own ("nobody really minds at all") was noted the first time.

Usually you can quickly deduce what the missing part would be. Maybe it’s something like You, sadly, always know what to do when she’s holding a dog on her Tinder and you’re like, “cute dog.” Or maybe the full sentence that emerges in your head is more convoluted, like Nothing is more bittersweet than reflecting on the challenges of dating someone who is superficially attractive but owns a pomeranian and thus, you worry, has all sorts of dog/partner priority issues, which you can instantly intuit when you’re using a dating app and see someone when she’s holding a dog on her Tinder and you’re like, “cute dog.”

Or: "That dog is cute (which is more than I can say for the owner)".

I simply tried (and failed, it seems) to say that they are generally considered to be equivalent,

Do you think I have a hard time understanding that the intent in this case is to use "aa" as a substitute for "å"? Let me put your mind at ease: I get, and got, that intent. I am not so inexperienced with reading or writing foreign words that I haven't noticed that one sometimes takes some liberties with spelling words using one's own characters, as long as the meaning is clear. My concern is more about whether it is proper to do that with names. Specifically, Norwegian names.

What I choose to do when I can't input some name because of foreign characters is to copy paste it when I need it. That might be tedious, but at least it doesn't require any sophistication.

I guess you're right about their use in words in general. I'm not sure you're right about their use in names in particular.

Firstly, people and places are still named with "aa" rather than "å". They aren't simply spelled alternatively depending on the mood or the keyboard of the writer. So it seems that, since they deliberately choose one over the other, they care whether it is spelled in a certain way.

Secondly, we make a distinction between whether someone is named "Christian" or "Kristian", for example. According to your logic, it wouldn't matter since there is no difference except spelling between these two names. But it does.

Do you have any authoritive source (linguistic, or etiquette) that says that such names can be spelled however the writer feels like?

His last name is wrong; it's "Knausgård".