Re: Why don't we spell cat with a K?

From: Keith Edgerley (edgerley.kj_at_bluewin.ch)
Date: 06/19/04 

Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 10:49:14 +0200

"Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@csuohio.edu> wrote in message
news:1fjgrwvx0ei8n.1g7dtozfs7r8c.dlg@40tude.net...
> On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 11:55:36 -0400 "Harlan Messinger"
> <h.messinger@comcast.net> wrote in
> <news:2jghjpF10ttftU1@uni-berlin.de> in sci.lang:
>
> > "Keith Edgerley" <edgerley.kj@bluewin.ch> wrote in message
> > news:40d2fb37_3@news.bluewin.ch...
>
> >> "Harlan Messinger" <hmessinger.removethis@comcast.net> wrote in message
> >> news:fqj5d0dkjdgota9gio5vjib8sg4ee9ecgt@4ax.com...
>
> >>> "Keith Edgerley" <edgerley.kj@bluewin.ch> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >>> >Tell that to my Swiss German friend Kathy Kurth, short for
Katharina..
>
> >>> It's a borrowing from English, no? The diminutive "-y" is an English
> >>> one. German ordinarily uses "-i".
>
> >> No. Why on earth should she use an English spelling here in
Switzerland?
> >> I was careful to say Swiss German.
>
> > Possibility 1: For the same reason people anywhere choose to give their
> > children a name or nickname from another culture?
>
> > Possibility 2: I didn't specify that it would have to have been a
personal
> > choice by your Kathy in particular. Without actually knowing the
situation,
> > it's conceivable that the name "Kathy" is in regular use in Switzerland,
and
> > that it was adopted from English.
>
> Keith is half right.

That's very kind of you. Perhaps we might remember that I am Swiss.

  <Kat(h)i> ['kati] is a pretty common
> Upper German pet form of <Katherina>, but the spelling
> <Kathy> is evidently influenced by the English pet form.

This is weird.

It's true that when I first met Kathy, I assumed her name was spelt Kathi.
But it's not.

Why on earth should a Swiss German peasant girl - her parents' are farmers
in a really out of the way village - use an English spelling of her
abbreviated first name. Talk about ethnocentric!

I know "-i" is used: example "Köbi" (= "Jim") I have only ever seen that
way, but Willy, for instance seems to be written that way just as often as
Willi. Even for people born 100 years ago. 

-- 
Keith Edgerley
owe war sint verswunden
alliu miniu jar