Surnames in Blyton

[dsr]

In terms of unfortunate last names, this is the worst I've seen. Apparently she pronounces it "Wonker": http://www.kimwanker.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I wonder if she's any relation of Thomas [censored], the composer whose done various scores for TV shows? Surely there can't be too many people with such an unfortunate name .

Oddly enough, Thomas "Censored" is also known as Thomas Wander, apparently the name he was born with in Austria. I have always suspected that it's some sort of private jokes by a man who knows that the forbidden word is very offensive in the UK but means nothing to most Americans.

[Moonraker]

I appreciate why, but I don't think people's names should be altered. This smacks of corrective racism. Remember, the 'W' is pronounced as a 'V', so is pronounced as Thomas Vanker or Vonker.

NSU produced a car, and I quote:

"The NSU Spider was a [censored] rotary powered two-seater roadster based on the Sport Prinz platform."

I have never heard of any problems in pronouncing this as a "Vankel rotary" - as it should be pronounced. Have we censored shag-pile carpet? Only smutty schoolboys would snigger, I guess, and we don't have any of that category here!

[Katharine]

On the subject of altering surnames, I've just read an interesting article by Barbara Stoney about Enid's half-siblings. Apparently when they discovered Enid's father hadn't been married to their mother, they changed their name to Blythe

I'm wondering what the surname had been on the birth certificates, and how the children had got to their mid 20s without having realised the family set up. Presumably they hadn't needed to fill in anything official up to that point.

[Irene Malory Towers]

Talking of shaggy my brother gave me an old edition of Three Boys and a Circus, 1954. I already had an old version, 1962, I was surprised to see quite a lot of changes between the 2 versions. The older version had more illustrations (and they were lovely) and a lot more text. It wasn't obvious why some passages had been cut. One example that was cut out is "He felt terribly lonely without his shaggy sheep-dog at his ankles." Could it be the word shaggy that is seen to be offensive or rude !

[natalieb]

There is a distinct difference between actual "blue bloods" with hyphenated surnames and your Sheila Naylor types who choose to create a new hyphenation.

[Fiona1986]

And what's that, exactly?