Charles Ellson wrote:

In other cases there was an established spelling but as applies in
this someone came along later and recorded/copied it incorrectly.
Rum/Rhum
Hannover/Hanover
Hazelton/Hazleton (Pennsylvania - allegedly misspelled in the
incorporation documents in 1857 and "it's too late to change it now")

Surely Hannover/Hanover is not a misspelling, but simply the English
version - cf Wien/Vienna and countless others. Admittedly nowadays in
many cases the "native" version is normally used - Brits used to refer
to Coblence, Mayence, Brunswick, Frankfort and the like.

Peter Beale

Peter Beale wrote:

Surely Hannover/Hanover is not a misspelling, but simply the English
version - cf Wien/Vienna and countless others. Admittedly nowadays in
many cases the "native" version is normally used - Brits used to refer
to Coblence, Mayence, Brunswick, Frankfort and the like.

Also, the German spelling of place names has changed over the years: for
instance 19th century signs often use C instead of K. I saw an old sign
referring to Cöln (not Köln) recently, and Coblenz was the usual German
spelling of Koblenz until the 1920s.

And in most cases the soft C in German has changed to Z: now "Zentrum",
formerly "Centrum".

Well-known cities often have different placenames in different
languages: Venezia-Venedig-Venise-Venecia-Veneza-Venetië-Venice for
instance.

And of course there are even alternative language placenames within the
UK (Abertawe-Swansea, Wrecsam-Wrexham, Manchester-Manceinion etc)...
--
Jeremy Double {real address, include nospam}
Rail and transport photos at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmdoubl...7603834894248/

On Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:28:54 +0000
Jeremy Double wrote:
Well-known cities often have different placenames in different
languages: Venezia-Venedig-Venise-Venecia-Veneza-Venetië-Venice for
instance.

Tell that to the BBC who seem to insist on calling Bombay Mumbai. Why don't
they just go the whole hog and start talking about Pareee or Moskva or Roma
in that case then?

B2003

In message
Jeremy Double wrote:

[snip]

And of course there are even alternative language placenames within the
UK (Abertawe-Swansea, Wrecsam-Wrexham, Manchester-Manceinion etc)...

Berwick-Newcastle-Middlesbrough

--
Graeme Wall

This address not read, substitute trains for rail
Transport Miscellany at www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail
Photo galleries at http://graeme-wall.fotopic.net/

On 19/01/2010 12:28, Jeremy Double wrote:
Peter Beale wrote:

Surely Hannover/Hanover is not a misspelling, but simply the English
version - cf Wien/Vienna and countless others. Admittedly nowadays in
many cases the "native" version is normally used - Brits used to refer
to Coblence, Mayence, Brunswick, Frankfort and the like.

Also, the German spelling of place names has changed over the years: for
instance 19th century signs often use C instead of K. I saw an old sign
referring to Cöln (not Köln) recently, and Coblenz was the usual German
spelling of Koblenz until the 1920s.

And in most cases the soft C in German has changed to Z: now "Zentrum",
formerly "Centrum".

Well-known cities often have different placenames in different
languages: Venezia-Venedig-Venise-Venecia-Veneza-Venetië-Venice for
instance.

And there are the somewhat unpredictable rules about what is
"acceptable" to use. Any Briton who says "Madras" or "Calcutta" is
considered personally responsible for Amritsar, the Irish potato famine
and slavery, yet no-one gives a hoot about "Londres".

A Briton who says "Peking" may as well just set up a direct debit to the
BNP, yet many Continetals seem to use it as standard. Giving up on
trying to say "Gdansk" is morally no different to issuing the orders to
/Schleswig-Holstein/, yet Poles happily say "Breslau" when they
realise we struggle to say Wroclaw.

Meanwhile Czechs will happily and probably needlessly use an Anglicised
version (of the German version?) of names, while Danes will use English
versions we don't use ourselves.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

On Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:00:51 +0000, Arthur Figgis
wrote:

And there are the somewhat unpredictable rules about what is
"acceptable" to use. Any Briton who says "Madras" or "Calcutta" is
considered personally responsible for Amritsar, the Irish potato famine
and slavery, yet no-one gives a hoot about "Londres".

And then there's "Bayern Munich", which has never made *any* sense to
me, as it's only half an Anglicisation.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:00:02 GMT, (Neil
Williams) wrote:

And then there's "Bayern Munich", which has never made *any* sense to
me, as it's only half an Anglicisation.


That's probably because British people (mostly football fans) couldn't
work out what Bayern meant, whereas they nearly all knew that München
(or Muenchen) was Munich. So they translated the familiar word and
left the unfamiliar one alone.

Plus, "Bavarian Munich" doesn't scan. ;-)

Back in the glory days of the Liverpool FC's European Cup exploits,
Liverpool fans had a particular favourite in Borussia Mönchengladbach.
The Scouse accent is perfect for pronouncing this - there was no need
for any translation into English. ;-)

On Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:21:34 +0000, Bruce
wrote:

On Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:00:02 GMT, (Neil
Williams) wrote:

And then there's "Bayern Munich", which has never made *any* sense to
me, as it's only half an Anglicisation.

Possibly because too many people knew what and where Munchen/Munich
was but not enough knew what "Bayern" was ?

That's probably because British people (mostly football fans) couldn't
work out what Bayern meant, whereas they nearly all knew that München
(or Muenchen) was Munich. So they translated the familiar word and
left the unfamiliar one alone.

Plus, "Bavarian Munich" doesn't scan. ;-)

Back in the glory days of the Liverpool FC's European Cup exploits,
Liverpool fans had a particular favourite in Borussia Mönchengladbach.
The Scouse accent is perfect for pronouncing this - there was no need
for any translation into English. ;-)

In article ,
Arthur Figgis wrote:

... Danes will use English
versions we don't use ourselves.

So which language is Copenhagen?

Sam

On 20/01/2010 16:23, Sam Wilson wrote:
In articlemtOdnatdQZn7nMvWnZ2dnUVZ7q6dnZ2d@brightvie w.co.uk,
Arthur wrote:

... Danes will use English
versions we don't use ourselves.

So which language is Copenhagen?

Dunno, but I wasn't convinced that them referring to Helsingør as
Elsinor in English was particularly helpful (they don't even go
overboard plugging the play. Which is lucky as my school did one set in
Verona). I think I've seem some more obscure examples too. But then I
suppose anywhere other than Copenhagen or Bilund is getting on for obscure.

I think I've seen a recent German text referring to "Kanton" rather than
"Guangzhou".
--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK