I just met an Irish guy named Costello, the fuck? How is that not Italian?

Next your gonna tell me there's an Italian name like "McPattyleanein" or something.

  • Diuretic_Materialism [he/him]
    hexagon
    ·
    3 months ago

    "Costello", apparently from "Mac Oisdealbhaigh"

    Oh yes a totally intuitive anglicization!

        • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]
          ·
          3 months ago

          Irish spelling actually makes a lot of sense if you have even a little bit of background in Irish grammar, pronunciation, and language history, but the problem is that most people don't have any background at all in those things, so the letter choices just seem completely arbitrary. It's truly the "Yup, that's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation." of orthography.

        • Staines [they/them]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 months ago

          Gaelic is confusing to English speakers because they expect the letters to have the same sounds. Mhath (good) for example is pronounced "vah"