Yes, Merman was not the daughter of a mermaid, nor was her father a
mer-man. McEvoy was wondering as to how otiose an hyphen can be. Initially,
hyphens are by definition otiose, since, as Geary puts it, 'they provide no
pronouncement' (his version of 'they are silent'). In middle surnames they are
VERY not otiose, as in Tiggy Legge-Bourke.
Why do so many well-to-do Brits only have what I call MIDDLE-hyphenated
last names, but almost none of them have initial hyphenated last names, or
final-hyphenated last names?
There's Tiggy Legge-Bourke and Edward Innes-Ker. And Natalie
Hicks-Lobbecke, Alicia Fox-Pitt, and Annabel Glynne-Percy.
Middle hyphenation is currently associated with the gender equality
movement, but it's been going on for hundreds of years in upper-crust circles,
mostly to preserve storied or illustrious names that might otherwise be lost
through marriage.
Two equally eminent families might also fuse their names to show off their
intertwining lines.
A lot of hyphens now gracing elite circles in the United Kingdom are simply
inherited — Edward Innes-Ker, for instance, takes his name from his
father, Guy Innes-Ker.
In 1905, a genealogist named William Phillimore Watts Phillimore published
an index of name changes in the United Kingdom between 1760 and 1901.
Today, all you need to change your name is a document called a deed poll that
is
registered in the English High Court.
But in Phillimore's day, you either asked the royal family or, where the
transfer of titles like Duke or Viscount was involved, sought an act of
Parliament.
Phillimore looked at (among others) nobles who had petitioned the crown
for
A LICENSE TO HYPHENATE.
(What H. L. A. Hart calls a primary rule)
Some were following instructions in an ancestor's will: to keep the estate
intact in the absence of a male heir, a patriarch might demand that any man
who married into the family graft his wife's last name onto his own.
The more illustrious name goes second, as in George Spencer-Churchill or
James Hawkins-Whitshed.
Or a husband would hyphenate voluntarily if he came from humbler roots and
wanted to signal his arrival in upper-class society.
In the 19th century, the practice of hyphenation spread, alas, among the
bourgeoisie.
Upwardly mobile Brits may have thought that "double-barreled" surnames (as
the masses called them) —so called to evoke the gentlemanly pastime of
hunting—would win them respect.
And in 1862, Parliament upheld the right of any Englishman to call himself
whatever he liked, making it easier for people to change their names for
more whimsical reasons.
Hart for one moment did think of hyphenating his surname ("but then I
thought that "H. L. A." was long enough").
Phillimore lists 93 "Smiths" who took on additional last names via hyphen,
presumably, he says, because they wanted to be known by something "more
euphonious and infrequent."
The most famous was Grice's friend, P. H. Nowell, who started calling his
self Nowell-Smith. (This is 'inverse hyphenation' in that his father was
Nowell, not Smith).
Historically, English royals did not have last names—they were known by
their "houses," or dynasties, like Tudor, York, or Lancaster.
But in 1917, George V broke with tradition and adopted the surname Windsor.
This move allowed George to retire his father's unwieldy House affiliation,
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, which seemed treasonously Germanic.
Note that in
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha it is otiose to speak of MIDDLE HYPHENATION since there
is no middle and two hyphens. These are called 'doubly hyphenated surnames'.
The descendents of George V now belong to the House of Windsor, and until
1960, they all bore the surname Windsor as well. In 1960, Queen Elizabeth
decided to honour her husband, Philip Mountbatten, the Duke of Edinburgh, by
requiring that their direct issue use a new moniker: Mountbatten-Windsor.
This means that Will, Kate, and any of their children are
Mountbatten-Windsors, too.
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron caused a stir in 2009 when he implored
Tories who were running for Parliament to dispose of their extra names.
"Dave's Tory De'toff" was viewed as an effort to diffuse the Conservative
Party's aura of privilege.
But it gained no traction among the candidates.
In fact, one of them, Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, had earlier taken the
opposite tack, adding a third sobriquet to plain old Wilfred Jones. He lost his
2010 election ("But I don't think it was because I dropped the hyphen but
because the electorate studied my planned policies").
Next is the fascinating analysis of "Ars Amatoria" as per the essay by R.
Henning -- excerpts below, for which one could follow the RKP volume:
Wittgenstein: "To follow a rule".
Or OVIDIO!
Cheers,
Speranza
In a message dated 7/30/2015 4:54:53 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
RichardHenninge@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Romeo: She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow
Do I live dead, that live to tell it now.
Benvolio: Be rul'd by me, forget to think of her.
Romeo: O teach me how I should forget to think.
So the question is, in Wittgensteinian overtones, how Benvolio can teach
Romeo the following of a rule. Shakespeare, in his "nature-forms of
language" ("die neue Natur-formen der Sprache"). A rule is not knowledge,
but a doctrine, a belief that one can try to teach to another. "Be ruled
by
me," as a friend to a friend, is a suggestion to follow my lead, my
advice,
still, granted, merely my belief, I am as fallible as you, aren't we all,
of
course, naturally. One hears the despair, the sigh in Romeo's "O": O would
I
could be taught (would I could learn from an external source) to forget,
and
what's more, to forget all thinking, for all thinking for Romeo is
desperate
thinking on the unattainable.... And the well-wishing Benvolio, who only
wishes well for his friend, has a repartee:
Benvolio: By giving liberty unto thine eyes:
Examine other beauties.
The "nature-forms of language" include the functioning of "by" in these
lines. The word "by" can translate the German word "durch," which can be
translated in English by ("by"!) "through." By "by," by means of
"through,"
one can better grasp the force of teaching, of teaching a rule, a belief,
granted, merely a belief, human, a proposal, a proposition, a protocol to
follow, but, hey, who knows? it might work for you. The words "liberty"
and
"eyes"--it's not like these two items do not have anything in common. And
it
is not wild happenstance that finds "giving" to be the appropriate verb
form
in this context. Eyes tend to roam. The mind dwells. It is natural to give
liberty to that which falls upon whatever comes before it.
And "examine": wasn't that the quintessential philosophical word, wasn't
that the English version most accepted for Plato's Greek version of
Socrates' saying, "The unexamined life is not worth living"? (By the way,
the Greek word translated by "unexamined" has the sense of going through
something thoroughly, "durch und durch," as in the German word for
experience "Erfahrung," which has the "-fahr-" root of "driving," "Fahren,"
not so distantly removed from the notion of Forschung [research], Forscher
[researcher, explorer], Suche [search], and Wittgenstein's Untersuchungen
[investigations, examinations].
Romeo reparts or re-departs on Benvolio's "beauties," energized by its
preceding word "other" and the impertinence of his friend even to suggest
that love object could even compare to "others":
Romeo: Show me a mistress that is passing fair;
What doth her beauty serve but as a note
Where I may read who pass'd that passing fair?
Farewell [note: fahr gut!], thou canst not teach me to
forget.
Benvolio: I'll pay that doctrine or else die in debt.
In other words, Benvolio believes that his belief, which he is teaching or
trying to teach to Romeo, that being to forget, will eventually be seen by
Romeo as a good investment, a good advice taken, to examine (not focus on
one) other (what, there are others?) beauties (perhaps my language was
running away with me?). Benvolio hopes to be able to say in the future:
"Romeo, have I not acquitted myself well by and in proffering the advice
to
forget?"
Benvolio's teaching, his doctrine, is proved right for Romeo within
minutes
on the stage. The above scene is in Act I: by Act III a little more than
an
hour into the action Romeo (smitten now by Juliet and accused, justly, of
having slain her cousin Tybalt) is carping at Friar Lawrence for trying to
talk reason and philosophy to the young man who has just been banished
from
Verona:
Romeo: "Banished"?
O Friar, the damned use that word in hell.
Howling attends it. How hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,
To mangle [!] me with that word "banished"?
Friar: Thou fond mad man, hear me a little speak.
Romeo: [re-parting from "speak"] O, thou wilt speak again of
banishment.
Friar: I'll give thee armour to keep off that word,
Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee though thou art banished. [Oh boy,
batten down the hatches, here it comes...]
Romeo: Yet "banished"? Hang up philosophy.
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a Prince's doom,
It helps not, it prevails not [i.e. it doesn't "rule,"
philosophy "setzt sich nicht durch," is ineffectual] Talk no more.
Friar: O, then I see that mad men have no ears.
Romeo: [re-departing from "ears"] How should they when that wise men
[like thee ostensibly] have no eyes?
Friar: Let me dispute with thee of thy estate. ["Yet" words,
talk, speaking, philosophy, might Romeo interject, here with the overtones
of Wittgenstein--where have we heard exactly these words and these
concerns
before?]
Romeo: Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel.
Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doting like me, and like me banished,
Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair
And fall upon the ground as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade grave.
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