zompist bboard

Just because something is written as /r/ phonemically does not mean it is trilled...

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Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

I know. It was a joke.

Probably not, at least for most people. For older people of higher education levels, probably. /r{lf/ is sort of a big "my parents wanted me to sound upper-class but didn't know how upper-class people actually pronounced their names" sign. But since those people now far outnumber the surviving upper-class Ralphs, I guess they've pretty much won that battle now. On which note: a couple of weeks ago I encountered a young person actually called "Raphe". [Come to think of it, there's an actor Rafe as well].

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Blog: http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/

But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

Was Raphe his name or short for Raphael?

What do you think, considering we are talking about Ralphs and not Raphaels?

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Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

It was in a context where I'd have expected a full name, or at least as full as he ever goes by. It's possible it was short for Raphael, but given that Ralph is much more common than Raphael, and I've not encountered Raphael being abbreviate to Raphe, it seems unlikely.

I was about to say that there was a good display of the transition in actors: Ralph Fiennes (b. 1962) to Rafe Spall (b. 1983). But actually, Rafe isn't an example of the modern Raphe's - he's named after a character in a Beaumont play from the early 17th century, so his Rafe predates the Ralphs (and shows that as late as 1983, guys like Tim Spall (working class, from inner-city London, and at that point not yet rich or famous) could encounter "Rafe" as "a cool name in an old play I'm going to steal because I've never seen it anywhere else!" rather than as just a normal variant of 'Ralph').

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Blog: http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/

But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

I'm just astonished people still name their poor child "Ralph." It's like naming your daughter "Gertrude" or "Beatrice." :p

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"But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”

I mean, that's the connotation in the USA (where the name is as good as dead), but "Ralph" has a different history in other countries.

"Beatrice" has actually made a slight comeback. It's currently as popular for newborns as it was in the early 70s.

Yeah, I've noticed there's been something of a revival of "old-fashioned" names, mostly for girls. My dad's a middle school teacher (so 11-14 year olds, mostly), and he's recently had students with names like Madeline, Gwendolyn, Ruth, Elaine, etc. Also a Roland, but he's actually first-generation French African, so different case.

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"But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”