khaleesi virus

I recently encountered the name

Kaleesi.

Not

Khaleesi,

which has been circulating for about 10 years, but

Kaleesi.

In terms of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels and the Game of Thrones tv series, the only correct spelling is khaleesi. I suspect that the name has now been adopted by people who have only ever heard it in passing. Not everyone has read all the novels so far (twice!) and/or watched the entire series. There’s nothing unusual about different spellings of a name existing side by side. What’s more unusual is that a name has a definite origin and an official spelling. 

I also suspect that the drift is/will be from kh to k and maybe we’ll even see Caleesi in the near future. Using k instead of c and kh instead of k is a deliberate choice, which I am middle-aged-ish and grumpy-ish enough to thoroughly dislike. 

After season 8 of Game of Thrones, the parents of all the Khaleesis and Daeneryses might be regretting their choice, or maybe they’ll pretend that season 8 just didn’t happen. 

I also suspect that Daenerys is going to get alternative spellings. I spelled it wrongly the first time. Most people on discussion forums refer to her as Dany, to avoid the problem. Arya might end up as Aria, which existed already anyway.

For what it’s worth, there are about 1.2 million search results for “kaleesi” (in quotation marks), with the question ‘Did you mean “khaleesi”’ and about 8.4 million for “khaleesi”. But then again, khaleesi virus comes up as one of the suggestions.

Note that female names tend to be adopted more than male names: there are probably no Khals or Drogos out there.

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Not so fast!

I was editing an article about intermittent fasting (that is, not eating for all or part of a day, interspersed with normal (possibly restricted) eating on other days). 

Inevitably, I got thinking about the various meanings of fast, as an adjective or adverb meaning quick(ly), as an adjective or adverb meaning firm(ly), secure(ly) and as a noun or verb meaning an abstention/to abstain from food. Dictionary.com doesn’t help. It lists the quick(ly) and firm(ly) meanings together, and notes that they are “akin to fast2” (that is, the noun/verb).

Etymology.com has possibly too much information. As I understand it, the firm, secure meaning came first. The abstain from food meaning came next, and means, basically, to hold oneself firmly. The quick meaning came last. If you run firmly, you run quickly. (Fast asleep means firmly, securely asleep, not quickly asleep, which might be confusing to young children, who almost certainly encounter the quick(ly) meaning first.)

From hold fast has come holdfast, which means a firm grip, a staple or clamp, or an organ by which an aquatic plant or animal can attach to a surface. Note also Holdfast Bay, Adelaide, South Australia, which got its name after Colonel William Light, the SA surveyor-general found anchorage there in a storm.

Hang on, though, I’ve encountered the meaning of a small fortress. But that appears to be used only in fantasy novels; Wikipedia’s disambiguation page gives GRR Martin’s A song of ice and fire series as an example.

PS At a funeral this afternoon, the word steadfast was used.