nu-cu-lear Ghandi

A few days back, Amit Verma wondered why Westerners spelled Gandhi as Ghandi. I think it is just a case of a wrong-becoming-a-right simply because it was repeated often enuf... error being cast as a variation (or metathesis) of the norm - the kind of broohaha that one sees in the case of Bush (and many others like him) pronouncing nuclear as nu-cu-lear...or whatever it is Bush says and his supporters justify!! (And don't get me even started on other Bushisms and verbal gaffes)

anyways, just read Scott Adams (yes..him, of Dilbert fame) justifying the spelling because of a silent H .. much hilariy ensues :)

A silent h can be put anywhere you want, precisely because it is silent. So for example, it is equally proper to spell it Gandih, Gahndi, hGandi and even Gandhhhhhhhi.

and more fun later..

In Viking days, not only was the h totally noisy, but the Norsemen used them in practically every word. This caused a lot of confusion. The most common phrase in Viking became "Whhaht? I cahn't hunhderstand! Get the h out!" But it all came to a head one day when Eric the Artistic carved a wooden chair out of a tree stump and was showing it off to friends. That's when Allen the Insensitive said, "Nice Chairh, hEric. I thinkh I'll shit on it" Well, the next thing you know, swords are drawn and limbs are flying. And that was the day that the Vikings decided to stop talking in English and go discover the United States, which they called America.

haha.. Waiting for the day when "misunderestimated" and "subliminable" becomes a legit word :)

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via Monkeyfilter:

Do you speak American? PBS put together a site to go along with its broadcast special (premiered in January) that's chock full of linguistic goodness! Take a quiz or check out the dictionary.

Everything you wanted to know about our crazy language - from Slayer Slang to New York Speak to Women Talking Too Much to Artificial Voices in Technology. There's also a nice list of commonly mispronounced words. Some people will just never learn.