XPost: rec.arts.sf.written, rec.arts.books
From: john@jfeldredge.com
On Mon, 26 Aug 2013 16:05:36 +1000, Rod Speed wrote:
> "Gene Wirchenko" wrote in message
> news:vkll19hb4jrg4sb48nh6om9a5dsmp51g6f@4ax.com...
>> On Fri, 23 Aug 2013 17:08:15 GMT, throopw@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
>> wrote:
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>>>After all, *most* mixed-radix systems still write/communicate things in
>>>bigendian fashion. Three pounds seven ounces. Five hours and 34
>>>minutes. Eight months and ten days. Folks don't normally go about
>>>doing things in littlendian order (or worse, like the US date formats,
>>>chaotic-endian order), unless it's to express an archaism like "four
>>>and twenty blackbirds". And even that's limited, since, eg,
>>>"four score and seven years".
>>
>> Exception: addresses:
>> 123 456 W. 7th St. Someplace, Here CODE Country
>> Some even get into middle-endian:
>> 456 W. 7th St., #123 Someplace, Here CODE Country
>
> And the absolutely classic difference seen with personal names, with
> some societys using firstname lastname and others lastname firstname.
A slightly different issue, but one that confuses record-keeping systems
in our culture, is that some other cultures use only one name (and some
individuals within our own culture, particularly some celebrities, use
only a single name as their legal identity), and some cultures, such as
in Iceland, don't have a continuous family name from one generation to
the next. My understanding is that Iceland uses patronymics for men and
matronymics for women, so that I, for example, would be called John
Jameson, because my father's first name was James.
--
John F. Eldredge -- john@jfeldredge.com
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot
drive out hate; only love can do that." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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