Proper Names - Definition

Participating Frequently

>I was referring to misspellings like "Wonderfull"

Well, I used the spell checker and corrected every appropriate word it highlighted. I don't remember that word coming up, but you are right, it is spelt wrongly, although I don't know why it should have only one 'l' when the word 'full' has two. Just like 'till' and 'until'. Why? The english language is designed to confuse, and it's our ancestors and us who have designed it this way by not being consistent. And some countries have a tendency to stick a 'u' in the oddest of places ... don't they Heather? Adds a bit of *colour* perhaps :) Incidentally, sometimes a word is highlighted in the spell checker but it doesn't give any spelling choices. It just says something like "as in text". What's that all about?

>Many, many times, but I've answered it again, just for you, in the previous paragraph.

Uuuh! Where? I see no explanation. You are giving equal importance to the grammar in both mediums (forum and finished art). Is that right? Is that fair?

>Many, many times. For example, you stated "we are discussing art, not science" in relation to the issue of lowercase in logos.

Are you classing design in with science?

>What questions have you asked that I haven't answered? I'll do my best to
answer them for you.

Thank you. Let's try the one above, the significance of my spelling mistakes on a forum as compared to a finished work of art. I don't see how the two can be compared.

>And the point of logos is to build brand recognition.

Yes, but if recognition due to bad press does the job, no need to aim for good press.

> I had this reinforced just the other day when I saw that the end credits for a very good TV programme were all in lowercase, which absolutely fitted the tone of the programme (somewhat anti authority figures) and was a nice touch.

Well, I can see your point to a certain extent. I suppose that could work, although myself I still think it looks very odd when there's no capitals and I'm not sure whether it works as a statement against authority or a statement against common sense. I still think it has very limited occasions when it can be used and virtually every example I've seen I can't see what statement it makes at all. The 'halfords' logo gives the impression to me that the service I'll get there is likely to be not particularly accurate. I think it's just a fashion following thing without any proper thought behind it.

Participating Frequently

>What point do you think you're making here, Richard? As I said way back at post 5, "I ... have no major objection to brand names using internal capitalization (like InDesign)".

Oh I know, I just thought it interesting to see an example of such a usage of capitals where grammatical correctness is more strict i.e. outside the world of brand names and logos.

Participating Frequently

>de Bary IS the family name. Capitalized as shown; spaced as shown.

Neil, remember I stated I thought it was the owners of the name who were at fault, not you. You had no choice. I was just suggesting a method of categorizing such names in order to stop all this confusion. Who could set out such a method I've no idea. Is there a lexicography board in charge of how names are structured? I imagine not, otherwise they would have sorted it out.

Participating Frequently

>Hey, now there's a thing Dominic. What about 'MacDonald'? 'MacDonald' and 'InDesign' ...... WOW!

What point do you think you're making here, Richard? As I said way back at post 5, "I ... have no major objection to brandnames using internal capitalisation (like InDesign)".

N

Neil_Keller

Known Participant

>Therefore you have to decide is 'Bary' the surname or is 'de Bary' the surname?

de Bary IS the family name. Capitalized as shown; spaced as shown. Changing to De Bary or dropping the word space would be similar to taking liberty with MacDonald, changing it to Macdonald or Mac Donald. And I'd put de Bary in with the phone book's D listings; not B.

But then, there's Ludwig van Beethoven. What do we do with him? We know him as Beethoven so I guess that is why we file him under the Bs. I had an uncle with the name van Aalxxxx. He was always known with both parts of his last name used together; and we filed him in with the Vs in the family phone book. But in business listings, his name would be just as frequently listed under the As as with the Vs. (And this was before computerization.)

Go figure!

Neil

_Herb_V_B_

Participating Frequently

Neil wrote:
"And I'd put de Bary in with the phone book's D listings; not B."

That depends on where you are. That's how it's done in US telephone
directories, but in the Netherlands, all the van's are ignored when
alphabetizing and are in lower case - otherwise that's just about all
there'd be in the phone book! Moreover, all names like Vanderbilt
appear as van der Bilt and are alphabetized under B.

- Herb

Participating Frequently

Neil - I've had a think about your fascinating 'de Bary' problem now and under the circumstances I can't see that you had any other alternative. But 'de Bary' on its own definitely looks wrong and I am now going to be cheeky enough to state that I think it's the owners of the name who are at fault. Just take this as me 'thinking out loud'.

The whole name is structured like a phrase and as a whole it makes sense, but when it's split up things change. When there's a Christian name in front the 'de' is a preposition, but when you take away the Christian name then it doesn't make sense, because 'de Bary' (of Bary) on it's own makes no sense. *Who* of Bary? Therefore you have to decide is 'Bary' the surname or is 'de Bary' the surname? If you decide 'de Bary' is the surname then 'de' looses it's preposition status and becomes part of a proper name. Therefore, it should then be spelt as 'De Bary' or better still joined as in 'DeBary', like 'MacDonald' and 'O'Leary'. (At a stretch I could accept 'deBary' perhaps).

(Hey, now there's a thing Dominic. What about 'MacDonald'? 'MacDonald' and 'InDesign' ...... WOW!) :)

What I'm basically saying is that I reckon if the person so named wishes the 'de' to be lower case and a separate word, then it is a preposition and should not be included in the surname i.e. they should come under 'B' in the alphabet and the 'de' put in brackets after it.

If they wish the 'de' to be part of their surname then I reckon it should be given a capital and then come under 'D' in the telephone directory.

How's that? Make sense? Anyway it wouldn't have solved your problem and, as I stated, this is me thinking out loud and I won't get my boxing gloves out for this one.

_Herb_V_B_

Participating Frequently

Re: de Bary et al -

The REALLY annoying thing is that it doesn't matter at all. However
the name is supposed to appear, telephone directories, credit card
companies, teachers, magazines, and computer systems will find ALL of
the possible wrong ways to do it.

They will:

Change de to du, Van to von, omit the word entirely, omit the space
when it SHOULD be there, add one when it shouldn't, alphabetize
arbitrarily, use upper and lower case randomly, and a myriad (neither
a Minion nor a minyan) of other unwanted twistings.

Our new AT&T white pages telephone directory,on has the following idiocy:

The full names have been changed, but you'll get the idea:

This is the actual sequence in the book

Van Aalxxxx
...
Van Zanxxx
Vanaaxxx
Van Aaxxx
... mixed Van[space] and Van[nospace] through
Vanzyxxx

It treats upper and lower case V's the same

My guess is that the first group was coded with a non-breaking space,
which was sorted separately from spaces and alphabetic characters.

- Herb

Participating Frequently

PS. Richard, I meant to include this in my post 93, but didn't. Re your comment that "It still begs the question 'What's the point in producing good art?'", how is this begging the question? (I'm assuming here, of course, that you're using the term correctly, but you would be, wouldn't you?)

Participating Frequently

>Did you know that the logo itself consists of the
numerals 2, 0, 1, 2 ?

No, I didn't, Herb. I had originally thought one of them was a very stylised version of England (the one with "london" on it), but then I didn't know what the others were. I think I was influenced in thinking this by an old board game I'd seen recently which used a similarly spiky version of New Zealand. I then thought they perhaps represented the boroughs of London (or those that were hosting the games venues, anyway). But I didn't spend much time trying to figure the London logo out (excuse the pun).

(My comment was actually directed at the Olympics rings, and how, even with the correct capitalisation, the London logo would still rely on prior knowledge for it to make sense to anyone. But the hidden figures emphasise that point.)

N

Neil_Keller

Known Participant

Stepping in for a moment from the sidelines...

>Actually, I wasn't referring to the initial mistakes - I was referring to misspellings like "Wonderfull" in your most recent post; that is, misspellings that continued even after you'd been made aware of both the spelling checker and the fact that some people found bad spelling confusing and (in this case) somewhat inconsistent, coming as it was from a person who professes to want to uphold grammatical standards.

Right or wrong, people judge other people by their spelling accuracy and grammar. Occasional lapses can be overlooked in casual usage. But when these errors are commonplace -- even in places like these Forums -- it casts a negative light on the writer with respect to intelligence and credibility.

As I said, such assessments can be unwarranted. But it's human nature.

Neil

Participating Frequently

>but the initial spelling mistakes themselves I think could be called an accident, or at least nondeliberate

Actually, I wasn't referring to the initial mistakes - I was referring to misspellings like "Wonderfull" in your most recent post; that is, misspellings that continued even after you'd been made aware of both the spelling checker and the fact that some people found bad spelling confusing and (in this case) somewhat inconsistent, coming as it was from a person who professes to want to uphold grammatical standards.

>Has that been answered somewhere amongst the mass conglomeration of words permeating this thread?

Many, many times, but I've answered it again, just for you, in the previous paragraph.

>Mmmm, did I state or imply such a thing?

Many, many times. For example, you stated "we are discussing art, not science" in relation to the issue of lowercase in logos.

>Do you know, I think you'd make a darn good politician. They are excellent at answering questions ...

What questions have you asked that I haven't answered? I'll do my best to answer them for you.

>Yes, but the reasons I understood what it meant and found it memorable were .......?

Because you can read English and because it provoked a reaction in you. Yes, I know you'll say you had to have prior knowledge that there was a city called "London", but first off, I don't think that's true - I think most people can understand the word in lowercase and most people are sophisticated enough to recognise the deliberate use of lowercase for proper nouns (you certainly did). And, even if you did need prior knowledge that there was such a city, so what? You also need prior knowledge to understand the Olympics logo.

>Well, if this kind of exposure is good I rest my case. What's the point in good art?

There you go again. We're talking logos here, not art. And the point of logos is to build brand recognition. As far as I'm concerned, that's the criterion for judging whether a logo is "good", not whether it meets with Richard Archer-Jones's approval.

>As long I can dream up some fancy explanation for my designs, like 'I'm looking behind the subject' or 'It's a statement on post-modernist life in the 21st century' ...

Well, that shows you've understood nothing of what I've been saying (which I'd guessed anyway, by the number of times you completely missed my points).

The inescapable fact is that using lowercase in the way we've been discussing invokes a different emotional response in the viewer than using uppercase would. And that's the point (and justification) in using them. I had this reinforced just the other day when I saw that the end credits for a very good TV programme were all in lowercase, which absolutely fitted the tone of the programme (somewhat anti authority figures) and was a nice touch. If you don't understand this concept, perhaps you should go back to art school.