MSGID: 1:153/716.0 70adee80
REPLY: 2:221/6.0 6707b612
CHRS: IBMPC 2
Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

AK>  I asked about the second name.

AH>  Oh, I see. I'd describe the initials here as representing a
AH>  person's given names and "Milne" as a surname or family name.

AH>  I understand these things work a bit differently WRT Russian
AH>  names... and to complicate matters, a person's given name may
AH>  also be the mother's maiden name and/or another individual's
AH>  surname where I come from.

AK>  Is it correct that a second name is always equal to a surname
AK>  or family name?


           Not always.  If another man introduced himself to you as "Alan
Milne" his surname/family name would be the second of two names & for everyday
purposes this works most of the time.  But a lot of folks have one or more
"middle names" they rarely use.  In this case we know the man's middle name or
use his initials
... but then we have three items in the series.  If he wasn't an author he
might not have disclosed this information & we wouldn't have to redo the
math....  :-)


AK>  How would you write it "Milne" or "Miln" if you never saw
AK>  it written.

AH>  Well, it does rhyme with "kiln"... so if I'd never seen or
AH>  heard this name before I might employ the latter until I had
AH>  time to investigate further.

AK>  It remains to me only to wonder about the English language
AK>  evolution. How on earth you put a letter into the word and
AK>  don't pronounce this letter. ;)

           In some cases at least a word has been adopted from a Scandinavian
or northern European language & we've trimmed a few inflections etc.  :-))


AK>  Maybe Milne was spoken differently in the past?

           Quite possibly.  There are many different dialects in the UK, and
for us it's not easy to be sure how or when the pronunciation may have
changed.  One must also realize that before the advent of the printing press
spellings weren't standardized the way they are now.  I've heard Shakespeare
didn't always use the same spelling of his own name... and other names often
have variations too.  :-)




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