‘Flappy Bird’ Generates $50K A Day

Outamyhead said:
I dunno, why are there so many Smith's on the planet?
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Because Smith is quite literally an occupational surname, popular in Europe even before the age of adopted lineage names. Many slaves and immigrants further adopted it simply because it was such a common name, further bolstering the numbers. During both wars, many Schmidts (same meaning) also became Smiths to avoid association with the enemy. Oh wait, you thought you were being clever and didn't really think there was an answer. :D
 
B2BigAl said:
Nguyen was the name of a Vietnamese dynasty. Look it up, also an interesting story.
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Still doesn't explain the dumb spelling, and its not because of French influence. Neither the "ng" nor the "uyen" even roughly approximate the proper Romantic phonetics, yet alone follow French guidelines in any shape or form.

From what I've read, it was simply a matter of ignorance by a misuse of dictionaries provided by the Portuguese and French without a proper European linguistic education to go with it, and the error was perpetuated unchallenged for so long that it was too late to change it. IMO its not too late, and they should just fix the error, but its really just the first mass example of inadvertent butchery like the engrish.com and similar sites of today. Its kind of hilarious, as I bet you there was just ONE prominent person in Vietnam that wrote it wrong, and then it kept being written that way from then on. :p
 
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