[quote=“theamazingcatherine”]No. That’s loan-words from two different dialects of French, a generation or so apart, or so a Professor of English told me.[/quote]But my point that the French version currently uses a G or a U sound where the English version currently uses a W sound is still valid.
No. That’s loan-words from two different dialects of French, a generation or so apart, or so a Professor of English told me.[/quote]
Ok, so Stewart changed to Stuart to make it easier for Frenchmen to pronounce 
, and then back.
However, does it mean that the situation in royal family affected all the other Stewarts? I mean, this is a pretty common surname, isn’t it?
And if it’s two French dialects, then how would the original Scottish be?
By the way, cool links, thanks, Steph 
True.
The trouble with names and spellings in English is that, until very recently pronunciation and spelling varied extroadinarily. I’m not talking differences between dialects, I’m talking about two guys in the same town spelling common words to their own particular taste.
There’s an awful lot of noise to the signal of ‘what different spellings indicate.’ That’s not to say they can’t mean something, but be very, very careful about drawing conclusions, 'kay?
There’s a difference, spelling-wise, of two letters. In pronunciation, assuming everybody pronounces those vowel combinations the way I do (highly unlikely, from what I know of phonetics versus alphabets), it’s the difference between a vowel and a dipthong [‘oo’ ‘ew’. It’s small.
If we wanted to investigate it further, we might take a look at other examples of loan-words into French, especially the vowels. It’s an awful lot of work, though.)
n u fink dat thngs r ne difrent now??
Don’t make me break out the custom emoticons!
I find it highly ironic that the average level of spelling on the internet is… variable, when the potential use of search engines is limited by accuracy. V. strange.
I don’t think it’s limited to “the internet” - it’s actually a fairly massive and sudden change in common written word. And I don’t think “effectiveness of search engines” is the thing to worry about, I’m more worried about the scope of meaning in communications and ability to take anything seriously. eg.
"i jst ran ova ur child n my 
"
Search engines like google sometimes give alternative options.
But the whole thing about those changes is more about to whom you are speaking. I remember several years ago I’ve read an article about a girl who wrote her school essay totally in mobile messages language. The teacher didn’t accept the essay, and the article was actually blaming the teacher for being so un-progressive and not understanding that this is a whole new language.
My own opinion is the girl just wanted to mock the teacher. Because otherwise I’ll have to think she completely doesn’t understand the rules of social behavior outside of her narrow peers group.
Not just that, google aslo recognises acronyms and abbreviations (e.g. IRD, UK and so on), it also includes plurals of words, in all google has become verry smart in the how it can search. However it is still left to the user to use certian terms to narrow the field of results down.
As for Stewart/Stuart i do know that the first Stuart on the throne was spelt the U A way and after that point it was E W.
Are you sure? Wikipedia tells me that it was actually Stewart until Mary Queen of Scots went to France and then changed the spelling so the French could pronounce it. All subsequent Stuart monarchs (James I, Charles I, Charles II, James II) kept it as Stuart.
(I did assume you mean the English throne. If you meant another, disregard my comment)
oh well ty for that, its been a while since i read the lineage of mary queen of scot’s (well the family tree at the back of the book)