Philip
: how to spell me and why
I really appreciate those who make the effort to spell my name correctly : its Philip (Ph at the start, single L in the middle, single P at the end). The phil part of Philip has the same etymology as the phil part of philosophy, philharmonic and philanthropy. There is only one (1) L in all those words.
I am neither German (Philipp), nor French (Philippe), nor Swedish (Filip), nor Spanish (Felipe), nor Italian (Filippo), nor Greek (Φιλιππος), nor Brazilian/Portuguese (Filipe), etc. I am of British English origin and I have an English forename.
No word or proper noun of
English origin ends in -ipp :
blip, clip, dip, drip, flip, grip, hip, kip, lip, nip,
pip, quip, rip, sip, slip, tip, zip and Philip
YES!
blipp, clipp, dipp, dripp, flipp, gripp, hipp,
kipp, lipp, nipp, pipp, quipp,... zipp and Philipp
NO!!
Just as I do not address a francophone called Philippe as Philip, I dont see why anyone should change my name without consulting either my parents, who gave me it, or myself. I dont think it is respectful to change any aspect of anyone elses identity without at least asking for permission to do so. Ive told my students, most of whom are francophone, that Ill deduct a mark when grading their work if they Frenchify, Germanise or in any other way unilaterally modify the cultural specificity of my name.
You may be wondering why Tagg ends in a double G when Philip has to end with a single P. As a rule, English words ending with a plosive phoneme —/p/, /t/ or /k/— do not use a double consonant to represent that single sound in writing. North-Germanic languages, however, have conventionally used final double consonants to change the quality of the preceding vowel, so that, for example, tagg [tag] (=thorn) can be distinguished from tag [tɑ:g] (=grip), slagg [slag] (by-product) from slag [slɑ:g] (a blow), and dagg [dag] (=dew) from dag [dɑːg] (= day).