Apostrophe Catastrophe

Also referring to the common misuse of the apostrophe, as pointed out in the book EatsShootsAndLeaves.

Q: How does a person with an Apostrophe in his/her name (e.g. Paddy O'Furniture) make a WikiName out of it without:

losing the apostrophe and
destroying preferred capitalization.

A: He or she doesn't. However, there are alternatives:

PaddyOfurniture (destroys capitalization)
PaddyOhFurniture (messes up name)
PaddyOapostropheFurniture (fun to type)
PaddyO%27Furniture (let wiki work it out)
http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?PaddyO%27Furniture (almost works -- but you can't create the page)
PaddyOfFurniture (Isn't that what the "O'" stands for, anyway?)

Apostrophe - The Si'n of Omission

 How necessary
 the apostrophe
 so small so cute so quaint
 it fits between the letters
 to point out where they ain't

--Phlip

 "Once upon a time, somebody say to me"
 This is the dog talkin' now
 "What is your, conceptual, continuity?"
 "Well I told 'em right then", Fido said
 "It should be easy to see
 "The crux of the biscuit
 is the apostrophe"
 Well you know, the man that was talking to the dog
 looked at the dog, and he said
 Sort of staring in disbelief
 "You can't say that"
 he said
 "It doesn't, and you can't, I won't, and it don't
 it hasn't, it isn't, it even ain't, and it shouldn't
 it couldn't"

--FrankZappa

Hey, what about those of us with periods embedded within our names? (BrianStPierre) We've lost punctuation too!

The convention is that "st." is an abbreviation for "stone", but no dot is used when Saint is abbreviated to "St". Doubtless, a few people choose to flout that convention, but let's just encourage them to quietly drop the dot.

And we of the 'Land of the Umlaut'? I have to rape my name to JuergenErhard, when in fact it's Jürgen Erhard. (Yeah, that's a minor problem in my case since "Juergen" is not a valid spelling anyway.)

Or people anywhere where accented letters are used? I doubt RenéGade would like to be called ReneGade?. -- RhesaRozendaal?

Imagine the pain of those with spaces in their names. To paraphrase Orwell, "all names are mangled, but some names are more mangled than others."

Try to think of it like a virtual Ellis Island, where sometimes you have to change your name to gain entry if the immigration official finds your original name too difficult.

http://www.ellisisland.com/history.html

Why http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?PaddyO%27Furniture doesn't work:

 http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?edit=PaddyO%27Furniture

gives the error:

The WikiWiki Server Can't Process Your Request

Edit: improper name: PaddyO'Furniture .

This information has been logged. We are sorry for any inconvenience.

"O" and "Mac" are both of Gaelic origin. "O" means "grandson of" (not simply "of" as mentioned above); "Mac" means "son of". Personally, I wouldn't have invented "O"; "MacMac" is clearly the appropriate refactoring. -- ConanDalton?