Write “Right” in the Right Way

You can say that something is right, accurate, or true in Armenian with the word ooghigh (ուղիղ).(*) You say ooghigh jampa (ուղիղ ճամբայ) “right road.” Note that when the word ooghigh becomes a compound word of any kind, the intermediate i is lost. This is why you have some words like:

ooghghagi (ուղղակի “direct”). Example: ooghghagi gab (ուղղակի կապ) “direct link."

ooghghel (ուղղել “to straighten; to direct”). Example: poghgabe ooghghel (փողկապը ուղղել) “to straighten the tie”; tebi harav ooghghel (դէպի հարաւ ուղղել) “to direct to the south.”

ooghghootioon (ուղղութիւն “direction”). Example: jisht ooghghootioon (ճիշդ ուղղութիւն) “accurate direction” (ooghigh ooghghootioon does not sound right...)

ooghghakrootioon (ուղղագրութիւն “orthography”). Example: hayereni ooghghakrootioon (հայերէնի ուղղագրութիւն) “Armenian orthography”

Now, there is a word that makes trouble, ooghi (ուղի) “road,” which is a synonym of jampa and janabarh. Many usual words are derived from ooghi and are all related to the notion of “road” or “travel,” such as:

ooghargel (ուղարկել “to send”)

hooghargavorootioon (յուղարկաւորութիւն “gravesite service,” when you send the soul of the deceased to its final rest)

ooghevorootioon (ուղեւորութիւն “travel”)

yergatooghi (երկաթուղի “railway”)

Many people tend to confuse ooghi with ooghigh, perhaps due to the closeness of meanings between “direction” and “travel,” and to write, for instance, ooghargel with two gh (ուղղարկել), which is plainly wrong. How do you avoid common spelling mistakes of this kind?

Memo to yourself: if you write any Armenian word related to the English concept of right, whether the root is Anglo-Saxon (“straight”), Latin (“direct”) or Greek (“ortho”), you are dealing with ooghigh (ուղիղ). If you remember that, you will always be using two gh-s and you will always be... right.

(*) Ooghigh, of unknown origin, entered the Armenian language in the fifth century. Its synonym shidag (շիտակ), of equally unknown origin, appeared in the Low Middle Ages. Although both are utilized interchangeably, shidag has a more colloquial use and cannot be always used as a full synonym of ooghigh.