<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">I think you forgot the "v" sound, Ken. For some odd reason the Polish language uses "w" instead of "v". So Murkowski should be pronounced Murkovski, like another well known Slavic name, Tchaikovsky. All the other Slavic languages that use the Latin alphabet use "v," not "w." So when you see a Slavic name or word with a "w" in it, it is Polish.<div>Ralph</div><div><br></div><div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 21.0px 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; "><b>Kenneth Marcy</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; "><a href="mailto:vision2020%40moscow.com?Subject=%5BVision2020%5D%20Alaska%20vote%20count&In-Reply-To=AANLkTi%3DxM-_DWUWRzXyhj3xPsmT5rJ_hZLnZvBftX9nQ%40mail.gmail.com"><font color="#000af1" style="color: #000af1">kmmos1 at frontier.com </font></a></span></p><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Times"><i>Thu Nov 11 03:43:34 PST 2010</i></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; min-height: 19px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier">The answer to your question should be no, but on what a court might decide I </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier">won't speculate. One does wonder, though, how far one might acceptably wander </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier">with alternative spellings. For example, if one writes Murkowsi with the </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier">International Phonetic Alphabet for American English as</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Courier; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier">mɜːʳcaʊsciː</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Courier; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier">(highlight, then change font to Lucida Sans Unicode, Arial, or Times New Roman </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier">if you can't see the correct symbols)</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Courier; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier">is that an acceptable spelling? Even though the phonetic spelling may conform </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier">exactly to an international pronunciation standard, requiring a particular </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier">idiomatic, familial, spelling seems churlishly, and in the case of election </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier">return counting, greedily, restrictive.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Courier; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier">Aside from Murkowski's name, is a phonetic spelling of a word acceptable as an </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier">individual's intent in a legal document, say, a contract, for example?</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Courier; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier">By the way, <a href="http://ipa.typeit.org/"><font color="#000af1" style="color: #000af1">http://ipa.typeit.org/</font></a> with Flash, is a handy page to bookmark.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Courier; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Courier; min-height: 16px; ">Ken</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Courier; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 8.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Times; min-height: 19.0px"><br></p></div></body></html>