Sæll, "Ragin Bragisbjorn".

>> 1. It is appropriate to describe an "øx" with the adjective "skjótr".
>
> Is it inappropriate? I have no basis for comparison. I can certainly
> find no basis for it being incorrect.

I just don't know. I don't remember and can't easily find an example of
the word 'skjótr' being applied to a weapon. That doesn't mean that it's
incorrect but it means I won't vouch for it for the time being.

>> 2. It is acceptable to represent both 'ø' and 'ó' with 'o'
>> (in an ASCII context?).
>
> Yes. Common practice is to do exactly this when the accents are
> unavailable, though I tend to follow umlauted characters appropriately
> with an 'E', even if that is subsequently followed by an 'E'.
> Unfortunately, we are not all accent-capable.

...

> My biggest problem right now is that when I try to send extended ASCII,
> I end up sending what resembles old modem line noise instead. Unable to
> make the appropriate letters, I *must* fall back to unaccented
> characters: for example, Voluspa instead of hooking the 'O' and
> accenting the 'A' correctly.

...

> 2 needs no defense, you're obviously a stranger to 7-bit ASCII;

You're attacking a straw man. I never said that you couldn't use
ASCII to write Old Norse words. What I said was that taking 'o'
to be acceptable for 'ø' and 'ó' was a defensible assumption.

My point was that it is still an assumption and it isn't necessarily
correct. Even though you may feel that the closest thing to 'ø' is
'o' other people may feel differently and some traditions might exist.
In this case, for example, many Danes write 'ø' as 'oe' in the usual
7-bit character set. Whether or not this would be a good idea for Old
Norse is not entirely obvious (for example I already use 'oe' for
oe-ligature). As for 'ó' I sometimes write 'oo' when I have to use
ASCII. I've seen people use o' and other practices may exist.

We might agree on some sort of standard if people are interested
but since almost everyone seems to be able to figure out how to
use ISO-8859-1 it doesn't seem urgent. I did belong to an Old English
list once that used ASCII exclusively (using certain conventions
for non-ASCII characters). I didn't think that was a good idea for
them and I think it would be worse still for us.

> Why not, "Hawk, Spear of Thor" is appropriate, but "Swift Axe" isn't?

Actually I don't think "Hawk, Spear of Thor" would be an appropriate
name and even if I did it would have little bearing on my opinion
on "Swift Axe".

> Actually, we can reproduce most sounds in English that are in other
> languages, with very little exception.

This is categorically wrong. Or show me how you would 'write out'
the pronunciation of the following sentence so that an untrained
English speaker would reproduce its sounds correctly (or even
understandably):

"Hrýðr hyski bónda álfastein, hrjóða álfar mannabýli."

> Taking into account that both Old Norse and English are Germanic
> languages derived from proto-Gothic and at least two other languages
> from the IE tree,

I'm not quite sure I follow. Which additional languages?

> Old Norse would not be as difficult as, say, something from the Congo
> to reproduce with enough accuracy to be effective as a teaching aide.

Maybe, maybe not. The issue is that there are very many sounds in Old Norse
that do not have any equivalent in English. I wouldn't be surprised if there
exists a language whose speakers are mostly located near the Congo that has
more phonetic similarity with English than Old Norse does.

>> Of these 2 is defensible, 3 and 3.2 are correct, I am not
>> certain about 1 and 4 while 3.1 and 5 are definitely incorrect.
>
> 5 is only incorrect because you've never tried it, but wold otherwise be
> correct as an assumption from English speakers;

It isn't incorrect because I haven't tried it it's incorrect because
it just doesn't work. You've furnished me with a good example yourself:

> I much prefer names that others
> can say, such as my own: Ragin Bragisbjörn. I usually correct people on
> my last name: people in the USA tend to pronounce the last five letters
> as 'byo-urn' instead of the more correct single-syllable 'beerrn', so I
> take the opportunity to gently educate them.

I have no idea what you're saying there. What do you mean by 'beerrn'?
Is the 'ee' to be pronounced like in 'beer'? How about the 'rr'? Is that
supposed to represent a trill? Do you think people will immediately understand
that? By any way of interpreting this pseudo-phonetic writing I can think of
I can't see how you could come up with 'beerrn' as a reasonable representation
of any correct Scandinavian/Icelandic/Norse pronunciation of 'björn'.
Actually 'byo-urn' looks more promising, even if I'm not quite sure how
to interpret it.

My candidate (since you insist I try) for an English pseudo-phonetic
representation of 'björn' would be "byurn". That's still far off the
mark, even if people interpret it as I intend them to.

And since we're on the subject of your name I can't see how "Ragin Bragisbjörn"
is an Old Norse name.

> However, I would have to agree with snarox over skjotox, because skjotox
> carries with it a connotation of moving by itself (i.e., running
> swiftly) whereas snarox carries a more battle-ready sound, being quick
> to be ready for the next thing.

This is all news to me.

> It's the difference in English between 'I am real quick' to 'I am
> really quick'. Correct grammar would make one sound correct and
> the other to sound strange.

Correct grammar would make to many things.

> How's this for a difference:
>
> I'd say it's got more of an 'E' sound than either 'run' or 'burn,' much
> like one is trying to slightly slur an 'E' into the word somewhere next
> to the vowel by pronouncing it at the same time. It's not quite the same
> as an 'O' with an umlaut, and is more open in the lips and front of the
> mouth. In Swedish, it's closer to the O-umlaut.

I've never seen descriptions like that help much. I certainly can't
figure out where you're going. What's an "E sound", for example?
You probably have to be more precise.

>> The 'r' should be rolled like in Spanish. The 's', 'n' and
>> 'a' are not far from what an English speaker would expect in
>> this environment. The 'x' is made of two sounds; the first
>> does not exist in Standard English; it is like the 'ch' in
>> Scots "loch" or German "hoch".
>
> It should be noted that the 'x' slightly softer than German 'Bach', but
> is otherwise unchanged in sound.

Undefined words like "softer" aren't very useful in phonetic descriptions.
In this case, for example, I have no idea what you mean. Is there a difference
in pronunciation between the Icelandic and the German words for salmon
('lax' and 'Lachs')?

> The 'R' should have a heavy trill, and
> Spanish isn't a good approximation: more like someone being flowery as
> they rr-ecite Shakespearr-rre. Slightly softer than the Spanish trill,
> but in the same range.

In my opinion the Spanish trill is quite "heavy" enough.

>> The second is an 's'-sound. An acceptable variant for the
>> first sound (at least in modern Icelandic) is like the 'k' in
>> English 'skull'
>
> In Old Norse, most people whom I've talked to tell me that this is
> definitely the case for the modern stuff, but the ancient stuff should
> simply sound slurred compared to the modern stuff. Make kind of like you
> are snoring while breathing out.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

> Takk, ok thakka thu fyrir (no accents, sorry),

This is, I suppose, to be taken as:

"Takk, ok þakka þú fyrir."

which is a grammatical sentence but it probably
doesn't mean what you intended.

Kveðja,
Haukur