On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 04:23:05PM +0200, Abigail wrote: > On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 01:42:09PM +0100, David Cantrell wrote: > > On Sat, Oct 17, 2009 at 05:32:13PM -0500, Peter da Silva wrote: > > > On 2009-10-16, at 09:06, H.Merijn Brand wrote: > > > >But where is the (software) hate in this post? > > > My last name has a space in it? > > Should you be sorted under d or S? > > Of the two van Whatevers I know in the UK, one likes to be sorted under > > v, the other under Whatever. > If you look in a Dutch phone book, you'll see that 'van de Foo' is sorted > under 'F'. In an American phone book, it's written as 'Van De Foo', and > sorted under 'V'. In Belgium, they'll be named "Vandefoo", and sorted > under 'V'.
One of the people I'm thinking of is Dutch (he's the one who wants to be sorted under Whatever) the other English. He has Dutch ancestors, but considers his surname to be van Whatever, a single name with a space in it and which begins with a lower-case letter. FWIW, in my phone's contact list, they're both "Whatever, Fred van". And what about Nguyen Van Thieu? I bet he'd confuse the Dutch phone book :-) -- header FROM_DAVID_CANTRELL From =~ /david.cantrell/i describe FROM_DAVID_CANTRELL Message is from David Cantrell score FROM_DAVID_CANTRELL 15.72 # This figure from experimentation
