"Lawrence D'Oliveiro" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Hendrik van > Rooyen wrote: > > > "Lawrence D'Oliveiro" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > 8<-------------------------------------------------------- > > > >> I wonder if we need another "middle" field for holding the "bin/binte" > >> part (could also hold, e.g. "Van" for those names that use this). > > > > NOOOOO! - I think of my surname as "van Rooyen" - its only a string with a > > space in it - and its peculiar in that the first letter is not > > capitalised.... > > > > And I am sure that the people called "von Kardorff" would not agree > > either... > > So do the Dutch phone books have a lot of entries under V, then? > > It just seems less efficient to me, that's all. Don't know about what happens in Holland - my ancestors came over here to South Africa a long time ago - a mixed up kid I am - Dutch and French from the time of the revocation of the edict of Nantes... And yes, here the phone books are sorted that way - the "van Rensburg"s precede the "van Rooyen"s. And what is worse, there are a lot of "van der"s too - two spaces in the string like "van der Merwe" who are preceded by "van der Bank" - "van" basically means "from" - like the German "von" - but in Germany its an appellation applied to the nobility - and in my name it makes no sense as "Rooyen" is not a place - its a strange archaic derivative of the colour red - "rooij' in Dutch, spelt "rooi" in Afrikaans - and the "der" is an archaic form of "the" - (and modern "the" in German, if yer male) ... And that lot completely ignores other animals like the "Janse van Rensburg"s, who go in amongst the "J"s... HTH - Hendrik -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
