I've always written the Irish phonetic form of "well" as "bhuel," and I'm pretty sure that's how I've always seen it written before, but I'm reading a book at the moment in which it's spelled "bheul." That doesn't make much sense to me from a phonetic standpoint, but the writer does use it consistently. Is that actually an alternate spelling, or did both the writer and the proofreader suffer from dyslexia?

Redwolf

Have to spell it "bhuel" (or bhail or bhoil) but not "bheul" because the bh would then be slender and then it'd be pronounced "vell"

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Agreed.

Actually when I see "bheul", to me it's the Scottish Gaelic form of "bhéal" (mouth)

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

That's what I thought. I actually corrected it spelled as "bheul" on Bitesize, then when I saw it spelled that way in a novel I wondered if maybe I'd been wrong all this time...but there was no way I could reconcile the spelling "bheul" with the sound "well" (turned out the one on Bitesize was just a typo).

Redwolf

There's a lot of dyslexic people in the world.
When I posted "stop... " recently on Facebook I had everybody puzzled, I had meant "spot..."

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
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And lots of folks just can't spell.

Eye deffinately aggree wit dat

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The thing is, that shouldn't be a major factor in a book. Frankly (speaking as a professional editor here) a lot of professional writers can barely spell their own names. They get paid for their excellent storytelling or reporting skills, not for their spelling. Published books, though, go through proofreaders and copy editors. A typo here and there may creep past (it's bound to happen...to err is human, to miss errors is a copy editor's recurring nightmare...and we've all done it). In fact, copy editors and proofreaders themselves whill often make spelling and grammatical errors in casual writing, and none of us are infallible. If I'd seen it misspelled once in one paragraph, but spelled correctly later, I'd put things down to that. But a word consistently misspelled throughout a book indicates a real problem. Either the book wasn't properly copy edited or somehow no one picked up on the fact that the word was misspelled. Given that this is a book geared toward adult learners, that's very worrisome.

Redwolf

Aontam leat...
I'm afraid things are becoming worse and worse.
Nowadays, because of Internet etc, people see much more mistakes than before, and they care less and less about spelling. Now even in France, where spelling is almost a religion, even on TV we see spelling mistakes everyday. And I think grammar and spelling are taught less and less in schools (the school system is falling apart in France, looks like). With Irish there are many problems, because most people who write in Irish are non native speakers so most of what you can read in Irish now (I mean, on the web etc) has mistakes, so it doesn't help learners to improve their spelling and grammar. That's one of the reasons I try to correct what I see (trying not to bother people, but it's difficult )

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne