What Happened to the Dot in "St.Kilda"?

[Sainternist]

I'm actually quite impressed with the quality of discussion generated by my post. Some great responses. Thank you, Saintsational folk!

[Jacks Back]

I sometime use the climate data from the bureau of meteorology (BOM) and they actually spell it as saint kilda while the same suburb/town name in Qld and SA is St Kilda. I wish the BOM would change it to its proper title.

[kosifantutti]

Regardless of the origins, St.Kilda the suburb and St.Kilda the club have a life of their own and the spelling and pronunciation doesn't need to be related back to its origins.

I'm pretty sure that the pronunciation of Melbourne is different to the way Lord Melbourne's name was pronounced.

Perhaps you can tell me why were called the saints then and why we had a dot for over 100 years

Why should I be able to tell you that?

[desertsaint]

st kilda pumas, st kilda sharks, st kilda saints - pretty sure st doesn't stand for shark or puma either.

[Enrico_Misso]

Bring back the dot.
And bring back the shield.

[Waltzing St Kilda]

Using a full stop is the American form: Mr. Jones, Mrs. Smith, Dr. Jekyll, St. Peter.

For a long time now the correct UK/Commonwealth English has been: Mr Jones, Mrs Smith, Dr Jekyll, St Peter.

Here endeth the lesson.

[Playon]

Regardless of the origins, St.Kilda the suburb and St.Kilda the club have a life of their own and the spelling and pronunciation doesn't need to be related back to its origins.

I'm pretty sure that the pronunciation of Melbourne is different to the way Lord Melbourne's name was pronounced.

Perhaps you can tell me why were called the saints then and why we had a dot for over 100 years

Why should I be able to tell you that?

Well someone must know where the dot went

[Dr Spaceman]

Well someone must know where the dot went

[Playon]

Hird filed it with the Bombers paperwork?

[loris]

Hird filed it with the Bombers paperwork?

. - .

[matrix]

Ma.trix.

Ive got a bagful

[Playon]

Well someone must know where the dot went

Ha ha LMAO, cool episode.Maybe George knows

[Playon]

Ma.trix.

Ive got a bagful

Give it back

[Playon]

On a more serious note. St Kilda where did it come from...
Melbourne's version came from a visiting ship, as mentioned earlier, Lady of St kilda. However that originated in Scotland from the Island St Kilda......

Article reads...

But what of the original St Kilda: where did the name come from? When I asked the island’s custodians, the National Trust for Scotland, for an official explanation I was told about its Viking origins.
“Skildir,” the NTS spokesperson said, “was the Old Norse term for shield, the shape of the island as it would have appeared from a Viking longboat coasting south from Norway.”
Not so, says John MacAulay.
“The name St Kilda is derived from the Old Norse term Kelda, meaning a well,” he said. “The main island, Hiort, has a well whose water was famous for its healing, health-giving properties, so much so that it became known as Sanctus Kelda, the Holy Well. It was a short step from there to St Kilda.”

Full article at
http://www.afloat.com.au/afloat-magazin ... ue0JUASiSp

[saintsRrising]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Kilda,_Scotland

Various theories have been proposed for the word Kilda's origin, which dates from the late 16th century. No saint is known by the name.[14] Haswell-Smith (2004) notes that the full name St Kilda first appears on a Dutch map dated 1666, and that it may have been derived from Norse sunt kelda ("sweet wellwater") or from a mistaken Dutch assumption that the spring Tobar Childa was dedicated to a saint. (Tobar Childa is a tautological placename, consisting of the Gaelic and Norse words for well, i.e., "well well").[3] Martin Martin, who visited in 1697, believed that the name "is taken from one Kilder, who lived here; and from him the large well Toubir-Kilda has also its name".[15][16]

Maclean (1972) similarly suggests it may come from a corruption of the Old Norse name for the spring on Hirta, Childa, and states that a 1588 map identifies the archipelago as Kilda. He also speculates that it may refer to the Culdees, anchorites who may have brought Christianity to the island, or be a corruption of the Gaelic name for the main island of the group, since the islanders tended to pronounce r as l, and thus habitually referred to the island as Hilta.[17] Steel (1988) adds weight to the idea, noting that the islanders pronounced the H with a "somewhat guttural quality", making the sound they used for Hirta "almost" Kilta.[18] Similarly, St Kilda speakers interviewed by the School of Scottish Studies in the 1960s show individual speakers using t-initial forms, leniting to /h/, e.g. ann an t-Hirte ([ˈan̪ˠən̪ˠ ˈtʰʲirˠʃt̪ʲə]) and gu Hirte ([kə ˈhirˠʃt̪ʲə]).[19]

Maclean (1972) further suggests that the Dutch may have simply made a cartographical error, and confused Hirta with Skildar, the old name for Haskeir island much nearer the main Outer Hebrides archipelago.[17][20] Quine (2000) hypothesises that the name is derived from a series of cartographical errors, starting with the use of the Old Icelandic Skildir ("shields") and appearing as Skildar on a map by Nicholas de Nicolay (1583). This, so the hypothesis goes, was transcribed in error by Lucas J. Waghenaer in his 1592 charts without the trailing r and with a period after the S, creating S.Kilda. This was in turn assumed to stand for a saint by others, creating the form that has been used for several centuries, St Kilda.[21][22][23]


The origin of Hirta, which long pre-dates St Kilda, is similarly open to interpretation. Martin (1703) avers that "Hirta is taken from the Irish Ier, which in that language signifies west".[15] Maclean offers several options, including an (unspecified)[24] Celtic word meaning "gloom" or "death", or the Scots Gaelic h-Iar-Tìr ("westland"). Drawing on an Icelandic saga describing an early 13th-century voyage to Ireland that mentions a visit to the islands of "Hirtir", he speculates that the shape of Hirta resembles a stag, (Hirtir meaning "stags" in Norse).[17] Steel (1998) quotes the view of Reverend Neil Mackenzie, who lived there from 1829 to 1844, that the name is derived from the Gaelic Ì Àrd ("high island"), and a further possibility that it is from the Norse Hirt ("shepherd").[25] In a similar vein, Murray (1966) speculates that the Norse Hirðö, pronounced 'Hirtha' ("herd island"), may be the origin.[26] All the names of and on the islands are fully discussed by Coates (1990).[27]

[saintsRrising]

“The name St Kilda is derived from the Old Norse term Kelda, meaning a well,” he said. “The main island, Hiort, has a well whose water was famous for its healing, health-giving properties, so much so that it became known as Sanctus Kelda, the Holy Well. It was a short step from there to St Kilda.”

The problem with last theory is that religion did not establish on St Kilda till 1822 well after the 1500's when it statred to be known as St Kilda.

[Saints43]

I'm actually quite impressed with the quality of discussion generated by my post. Some great responses. Thank you, Saintsational folk!

Well it's a discussion that the Gold Coast Suns will never need to have.... they can look up their origins from the minutes of a meeting at AFL House twenty minutes ago.

[SideshowMilne]

Our team is named after the suburb, after the boat, after the Island. If the island doesn't have a dot, neither should we. 100 years of people writing it wrong does not make it rite. Then again sometimes wrong becomes right. The length of metre was ballsed up by a French surveyor and survives to this day.

[8856brother]

My Nanna's name is Dot, and she lives in St Kilda.

[desertsaint]

Our team is named after the suburb, after the boat, after the Island. If the island doesn't have a dot, neither should we. 100 years of people writing it wrong does not make it rite. Then again sometimes wrong becomes right. The length of metre was ballsed up by a French surveyor and survives to this day.

You're never too old to learn something new. You're quite right.
”Since 1983, the meter has been defined as “the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second, but it is still 0.2 millimeter short of one ten millionth of the quadrant of a meridian arc."

[Playon]

Well here's the answer, unless of course English writing changed since then and now and indeed the ST in St kilda is an abbreviation of Saint, which it didn't start out that way.

However for us there should be no dot as the ST in St Kilda is an abbreviation of Saint, and obviously pronounced as SNT
Have we had over 100 years of poor punctuation or has Grammar changed since or is the dot optional. Anyone know an English professor?

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words ... reviations
Punctuation in abbreviations

People are often uncertain about whether or not to use full stops in abbreviations. Here are some guidelines:

1. In both British and American English, if you are using initial (i.e. first) letters to represent words, you don’t normally need to put a full stop after them:

BBC

UK

NATO

2. In American English, however, it is common to use a full stop as an alternative style for certain abbreviations, in particular:

USA or U.S.A.

US or U.S.

3. If an abbreviation consists of the first and last letters of a word, you don’t need to use a full stop at the end:

Mr

Ltd

Dr

4. If the abbreviation consists only of the first part of a word, then you should put a full stop at the end:

Wed. [= Wednesday]

Dec. [= December]

[sunsaint]

Im pointing the finger at `Gilbey`s Gin!` and a sign writer that slightly overestimated the paint

[GrumpyOne]

Our team is named after the suburb, after the boat, after the Island. If the island doesn't have a dot, neither should we.

This.

End of discussion.

Fancy barracking for a team and not getting the name right.

Muppets.

[evertonfc]

To confuse things beyond all measure...

Clearly, that's a dot. Or is it?



Great thread. I've wondered about it for a long time.

I'd argue we're officially St Kilda.

Stylistically, we've been St. Kilda, St.Kilda and St Kilda.

But not StKilda, and never Saint Kilda. Contrary to Nick Dal Santo's pronunciation.

[perfectionist]

Argus newspaper 1877
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/5938506...

" Mr. Power, of Carlton, officiated as central umpire, with his wonted impartiality and his utter indifference to the comments of inconsiderate onlookers."

Those "onlookers" haven't got any more considerate over the years. The word "wonted" means usual or habitual. I can just remember it being used by old timers in my youth, but not in the last 50 years.