In 2010, the Academia Real Espa|#ola declared that 'ch' and 'll' were no longer letters in their own right, but digraphs (like 'ph' in English).
As such words with 'ch' would be alphabetized after 'cg' and before
'ci', and those with 'll' would have that between 'lk' and 'lm'.
I personally think this was because computers could not handle them as single letters, and sort algorithms in particular would just break.
So my question is, when will style manuals decide that book titles and
such will have every word capitalized, and drop the exceptions of all
the "short words" (e.g., a, an, the, by, of, ...)? I forget what word
length I learned should be capitalized, but the rule now seems to be
four letters or longer.
I ask because every editor's capitalization command seems to just
capitalize every word.
(The rule about two spaces between sentences seems to have fallen by the wayside years ago.)
(The rule about two spaces between sentences seems to have fallen by
the wayside years ago.)
On 1/16/2026 8:31 AM, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
In 2010, the Academia Real Espa|#ola declared that 'ch' and 'll' were
no longer letters in their own right, but digraphs (like 'ph' in
English). As such words with 'ch' would be alphabetized after 'cg' and
before 'ci', and those with 'll' would have that between 'lk' and 'lm'.
I personally think this was because computers could not handle them as
single letters, and sort algorithms in particular would just break.
So my question is, when will style manuals decide that book titles and
such will have every word capitalized, and drop the exceptions of all
the "short words" (e.g., a, an, the, by, of, ...)? I forget what word
length I learned should be capitalized, but the rule now seems to be
four letters or longer.
I ask because every editor's capitalization command seems to just
capitalize every word.
(The rule about two spaces between sentences seems to have fallen by
the wayside years ago.)
I never got that word length mattered, I had the impression that it was conjunctions and the like that weren't capitalized.
In article <10kdp51$1kju4$1@dont-email.me>,
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) wrote:
(The rule about two spaces between sentences seems to have fallen by
the wayside years ago.)
I've been doing double spaces for so long now, I can't stop doing it.
In 2010, the Academia Real Espa|#ola declared that 'ch' and 'll' were
no longer letters in their own right, but digraphs (like 'ph' in
English). As such words with 'ch' would be alphabetized after 'cg'
and before 'ci', and those with 'll' would have that between 'lk'
and 'lm'.
I personally think this was because computers could not handle them
as single letters, and sort algorithms in particular would just
break.
(The rule about two spaces between sentences seems to have fallen by
the wayside years ago.)
In 2010, the Academia Real Espa|#ola declared that 'ch' and 'll' were no >longer letters in their own right, but digraphs (like 'ph' in English).
As such words with 'ch' would be alphabetized after 'cg' and before
'ci', and those with 'll' would have that between 'lk' and 'lm'.
I personally think this was because computers could not handle them as >single letters, and sort algorithms in particular would just break.
On Fri, 16 Jan 2026 11:31:29 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
In 2010, the Academia Real Espa|#ola declared that 'ch' and 'll' were
no longer letters in their own right, but digraphs (like 'ph' in
English). As such words with 'ch' would be alphabetized after 'cg'
and before 'ci', and those with 'll' would have that between 'lk'
and 'lm'.
I personally think this was because computers could not handle them
as single letters, and sort algorithms in particular would just
break.
ItrCOs not the computers at fault, itrCOs the programmers who donrCOt know
to write text-processing code that caters for different languages.
On 1/16/26 12:45, Paul Dormer wrote:
In article <10kdp51$1kju4$1@dont-email.me>,
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) wrote:
(The rule about two spaces between sentences seems to have fallen by
the wayside years ago.)
I've been doing double spaces for so long now, I can't stop doing it.
I decided towards the end of last year I was going switch the MT VOID to >single spaces. I also switched to the more rational placement of periods
and commas within or without quotation marks.
And I had been doing double spaces for sixty years.
(Annoyingly, vi will make a double space if you join two lines, the
first of which has a sentence end. Yes, I'm still using vi.)
On Fri, 16 Jan 2026 11:31:29 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
In 2010, the Academia Real Espa|#ola declared that 'ch' and 'll'
were no longer letters in their own right, but digraphs (like 'ph'
in English). As such words with 'ch' would be alphabetized after
'cg' and before 'ci', and those with 'll' would have that between
'lk' and 'lm'.
I personally think this was because computers could not handle
them as single letters, and sort algorithms in particular would
just break.
ItrCOs not the computers at fault, itrCOs the programmers who donrCOt
know to write text-processing code that caters for different
languages.
Not the programmers fault. It's a problem using ASCII (or EBCDIC)
rather than unicode.
In article <10kdp51$1kju4$1@dont-email.me>,
Evelyn C. Leeper <evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com> wrote:
I personally think this was because computers could not handle them
as single letters, and sort algorithms in particular would just
break.
Not really true... It depends on how the text is coded internally.
ve, donrCOt you think.--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) wrote:
(The rule about two spaces between sentences seems to have fallen by
the wayside years ago.)
I've been doing double spaces for so long now, I can't stop doing it.
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:13:45 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
In article <10kdp51$1kju4$1@dont-email.me>,
Evelyn C. Leeper <evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com> wrote:
I personally think this was because computers could not handle them
as single letters, and sort algorithms in particular would just
break.
Not really true... It depends on how the text is coded internally.
Depending solely on the text encoding for word sorting is pretty
ve, donrCOt you think.
positions.sort(key = lambda e : e[1])^^^
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 08:55:53 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
Depending solely on the text encoding for word sorting is pretty
ve, donrCOt you think.
Perhaps. But think back to at least the early 1970s and remember
that as far as the computer is concerned, everything is just a
sequence of bits.
In article <10kdp51$1kju4$1@dont-email.me>,
Evelyn C. Leeper <evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com> wrote:
In 2010, the Academia Real Espa|#ola declared that 'ch' and 'll' were no >>longer letters in their own right, but digraphs (like 'ph' in English).
As such words with 'ch' would be alphabetized after 'cg' and before
'ci', and those with 'll' would have that between 'lk' and 'lm'.
I personally think this was because computers could not handle them as >>single letters, and sort algorithms in particular would just break.
[Hal Heydt]
Not really true... It depends on how the text is coded
internally.
If you're using ASCII or ECBDIC, then those digraphs
would be two symbols each. That's because those are 7 or 8 bit
code schemes. If you're using unicode, each character uses 16
bits and those could be very easily defined as single symbols.
(Unicode handles a great many more symbol sets than the Roman
alphabet.)
On 2026-01-17, Dorothy J Heydt <djheydt@kithrup.com> wrote:
In article <10kdp51$1kju4$1@dont-email.me>,
Evelyn C. Leeper <evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com> wrote:
In 2010, the Academia Real Espa|#ola declared that 'ch' and 'll' were no >>> longer letters in their own right, but digraphs (like 'ph' in English).
As such words with 'ch' would be alphabetized after 'cg' and before
'ci', and those with 'll' would have that between 'lk' and 'lm'.
I personally think this was because computers could not handle them as
single letters, and sort algorithms in particular would just break.
No, there are international standards for collating sequences. At the 1990 Worldcon in the Netherlands I found a small huddle of Confused Americans trying to find their membership numbers in an alphabetical list. The list followed the Dutch collating sequence standards where the prefix "van" in a surname is ignored. So "van Gelder" appears between F... and H... names.
Yes, there are international standards. But when someone put a bunch
of names in a spreadsheet and asked to have it sorted, it would
blithely ignore those standards, and sort 'ch' as 'c' followed by
'h'.
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 08:55:53 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence DAOliveiro wrote:
Perhaps. But think back to at least the early 1970s and remember
that as far as the computer is concerned, everything is just a
sequence of bits.
So what? It still wasnAt a good idea back then.
Technology is here to serve the needs of us humans, we are not here to
serve the needs of technology.
* Do you want the same sort for everything, including book titles,Or which name is the correct one to sort on (think Iceland).
and proper names? How do you reasonably sort people's names if you
don't know whether the surname precedes or follows the given name?
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 16:15:22 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
Yes, there are international standards. But when someone put a bunch
of names in a spreadsheet and asked to have it sorted, it would
blithely ignore those standards, and sort 'ch' as 'c' followed by
'h'.
That depends on your spreadsheet. The natural order (to humans,
anyway) is commonly called rCLphonebookrCY order.
<https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/calc-data-sorting-not-following-ascii-unicode-order/87503/4>
Are you suggesting that in the 1970s, when it would have been
fiscally impractical to sort the way you want now ...
On 1/17/26 17:50, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 16:15:22 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
Yes, there are international standards. But when someone put a
bunch of names in a spreadsheet and asked to have it sorted, it
would blithely ignore those standards, and sort 'ch' as 'c'
followed by 'h'.
That depends on your spreadsheet. The natural order (to humans,
anyway) is commonly called rCLphonebookrCY order.
<https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/calc-data-sorting-not-following-ascii-unicode-order/87503/4>
This assumes there is a single, natural order.
Precisely what it doesn't assume. That's why the software in question
gives you the option of different sort orders.
On Sun, 18 Jan 2026 02:05:03 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
Precisely what it doesn't assume. That's why the software in
question gives you the option of different sort orders.
Which OS/360 did in spades.... there were plenty of options on the
SORT card, although all English-specific...
It may be possible, now, to sort the way you want. But there are some problems to be solved, first. Among them are:
* Defining the proper sort. Do you sort Mac & Mc together? Do you
ignore leading articles? Even French ones (such as Les)? Let's not
forget Gary McGath's complaint: 'I have a song in Fourscore called "A
Is A." The app alphabetizes it under "I," treating "A" as a definite article.' How about the apostrophe in O'Brien? And remember that your
sort order has to be defined to take into considerations you've never
come across.
* Do you want the same sort for everything, including book titles,
and proper names? How do you reasonably sort people's names if you
don't know whether the surname precedes or follows the given name?
* You need to convince enough people that your sort order is not only
more nearly correct than anyone else's, but that it's worthwhile
changing to it.
* Figure how to code the sort in every programming language in use,
for all of the Unicode character sets. Remember that they can be
combined. Also, there are many Unicode sets not yet defined, and the algorithm must support those new ones.
It's correct to both hope and expect that technology will keep
improving in ways that better help us. I think it's naive to expect
that it'll ever be perfect. It's even more naive to believe you can
persuade everyone that there is a One Best Way (TM) to do things.
On 1/17/26 19:45, Someone Else wrote:
* Do you want the same sort for everything, including book titles,Or which name is the correct one to sort on (think Iceland).
and proper names? How do you reasonably sort people's names if you
don't know whether the surname precedes or follows the given name?
On 1/17/26 16:00, Bernard Peek wrote:
On 2026-01-17, Dorothy J Heydt <djheydt@kithrup.com> wrote:
In article <10kdp51$1kju4$1@dont-email.me>,
Evelyn C. Leeper <evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com> wrote:
In 2010, the Academia Real Espa|#ola declared that 'ch' and 'll' were no >>>> longer letters in their own right, but digraphs (like 'ph' in English). >>>> As such words with 'ch' would be alphabetized after 'cg' and before
'ci', and those with 'll' would have that between 'lk' and 'lm'.
I personally think this was because computers could not handle them as >>>> single letters, and sort algorithms in particular would just break.
No, there are international standards for collating sequences. At the 1990 >> Worldcon in the Netherlands I found a small huddle of Confused Americans
trying to find their membership numbers in an alphabetical list. The list >> followed the Dutch collating sequence standards where the prefix "van" in a >> surname is ignored. So "van Gelder" appears between F... and H... names.
Yes, there are international standards. But when someone put a bunch of names in a spreadsheet and asked to have it sorted, it would blithely
ignore those standards, and sort 'ch' as 'c' followed by 'h'.
This is still a problem in languages such as Welsh, Hungarian, Czech,
and Slovak.
But not in Spanish anymore. Because the Academia Real recognized it was
a problem that they could not fix by stamping their feet and saying,
"But there's a standard!" "Real" in this case may be short for "realidad".
On 1/17/26 17:50, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 16:15:22 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
Yes, there are international standards. But when someone put a bunch
of names in a spreadsheet and asked to have it sorted, it would
blithely ignore those standards, and sort 'ch' as 'c' followed by
'h'.
That depends on your spreadsheet. The natural order (to humans,
anyway) is commonly called rCLphonebookrCY order.
<https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/calc-data-sorting-not-following-ascii-unicode-order/87503/4>
This assumes there is a single, natural order.
How about the apostrophe in O'Brien? And remember that your
sort order has to be defined to take into considerations you've never
come across.
Or that once you have documented it as an international standard that they will stick to it, or even check whether a standard already exists before
they reinvent the wheel.
In article <099omkhf7istvj5f72g9j5rdhd6c82frfj@4ax.com>, someone.else@example.com.invalid (Someone Else) wrote:
How about the apostrophe in O'Brien? And remember that your
sort order has to be defined to take into considerations you've never
come across.
Reminds me of a story I heard many years ago where someone with an Irish
name couldn't find his name in the telephone directory. Turned out he
had been entered as 0'Brien and was right at the front of the book.
Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
Precisely what it doesn't assume. That's why the software in question
gives you the option of different sort orders.
Which OS/360 did in spades.... there were plenty of options on the SORT
card, although all English-specific... including telephone book order. Nothing handling digraphs like AE but there was a thing for numbers to be
put into spelled-out order.
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 22:20:25 -0500 (EST), Scott Dorsey wrote:
On Sun, 18 Jan 2026 02:05:03 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
Precisely what it doesn't assume. That's why the software in
question gives you the option of different sort orders.
Which OS/360 did in spades.... there were plenty of options on the
SORT card, although all English-specific...
Maybe call it clubs rather than spades, then ... the software
mentioned in the link does non-English sort orders as well.
Or that once you have documented it as an international standard that they >will stick to it, or even check whether a standard already exists before
they reinvent the wheel.
Modern database software lets you select the collating sequence for
a table based on each languages' rules. That becomes the default
sort order for reports. But you can change that programmatically.
Reports should always use a collating sequence that puts the data
where the reader expects it to be. The physical format of the data
on disk should not make any difference.
There are international standards but they are in some degree of
conflict. The way that you sort a mixture of roman letters and kanji
is not the same as the way that you sort a mixture of roman letters
and hanzhi.. The characters are the same but the method is not.
... some movie promotion firm had software that treated ZIP codes as
numbers, but then dropped leading '0's from those numbers.
How do you reasonably sort people's names if you don't know whether
the surname precedes or follows the given name?
On 2026-01-18, Evelyn C. Leeper <evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com> wrote:
On 1/17/26 17:50, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
The natural order (to humans, anyway) is commonly called
rCLphonebookrCY order.
<https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/calc-data-sorting-not-following-ascii-unicode-order/87503/4>
This assumes there is a single, natural order.
No, it assumes that the user knows what the standard order is.
And digraphs are where we came in.
On Sun, 18 Jan 2026 08:35:24 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
... some movie promotion firm had software that treated ZIP codes as
numbers, but then dropped leading '0's from those numbers.
Microsoft Excel user!
On 18 Jan 2026 10:02:33 GMT, Bernard Peek wrote:
Modern database software lets you select the collating sequence for
a table based on each languages' rules. That becomes the default
sort order for reports. But you can change that programmatically.
Reports should always use a collating sequence that puts the data
where the reader expects it to be. The physical format of the data
on disk should not make any difference.
It should be possible to choose the collating sequence for the
retrieved results as part of the query, rather than relying on a fixed
one assigned when the records are stored.
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 19:45:42 -0500, Someone Else wrote:
How do you reasonably sort people's names if you don't know whether
the surname precedes or follows the given name?
I like the French answer to this question: capitalize the family name (donrCOt call it rCLsurnamerCY), so you can spot it wherever it occurs:
Peter SELLERS
LUGOSI Bela
Marty FELDMAN
SAKAMOTO Ryuichi
CHOW Yun Fat
Michelle YEOH Choo Kheng
On 1/18/26 16:51, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 19:45:42 -0500, Someone Else wrote:
How do you reasonably sort people's names if you don't know whether
the surname precedes or follows the given name?
I like the French answer to this question: capitalize the family name
(donrCOt call it rCLsurnamerCY), so you can spot it wherever it occurs:
Peter SELLERS
LUGOSI Bela
Marty FELDMAN
SAKAMOTO Ryuichi
CHOW Yun Fat
Michelle YEOH Choo Kheng
But in Iceland, there is no family name to capitalize.
On 1/18/26 16:46, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Sun, 18 Jan 2026 08:35:24 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
... some movie promotion firm had software that treated ZIP codes
as numbers, but then dropped leading '0's from those numbers.
Microsoft Excel user!
Could be LibreOffice.
On 1/18/2026 4:44 PM, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
It should be possible to choose the collating sequence for the
retrieved results as part of the query, rather than relying on a
fixed one assigned when the records are stored.
Its easy to forget that there's a resource issue here. Ordering
once, and then storing in that order may be inflexible, but it
greatly reduced the resources needed to make a retrieval.
On Sun, 18 Jan 2026 08:35:24 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
... some movie promotion firm had software that treated ZIP codes as numbers, but then dropped leading '0's from those numbers.
Microsoft Excel user!
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 16:15:22 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
Yes, there are international standards. But when someone put a bunch
of names in a spreadsheet and asked to have it sorted, it would
blithely ignore those standards, and sort 'ch' as 'c' followed by
'h'.
That depends on your spreadsheet. The natural order (to humans,
anyway) is commonly called rCLphonebookrCY order.
<https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/calc-data-sorting-not-following-ascii-unicode-order/87503/4>
On 1/18/26 16:46, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Sun, 18 Jan 2026 08:35:24 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
... some movie promotion firm had software that treated ZIP codes as
numbers, but then dropped leading '0's from those numbers.
Microsoft Excel user!
Could be LibreOffice.
In article <10kjkb5$3p7to$15@dont-email.me>,
Lawrence DrCOOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sun, 18 Jan 2026 08:35:24 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
... some movie promotion firm had software that treated ZIP codes as
numbers, but then dropped leading '0's from those numbers.
Microsoft Excel user!
I ran into a similar problem myself with Excel; I entered those numbers
as text to fix it.
On 18/01/2026 09:50, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 16:15:22 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
Yes, there are international standards. But when someone put a bunch
of names in a spreadsheet and asked to have it sorted, it would
blithely ignore those standards, and sort 'ch' as 'c' followed by
'h'.
That depends on your spreadsheet. The natural order (to humans,
anyway) is commonly called rCLphonebookrCY order.
<https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/calc-data-sorting-not-following-ascii-
unicode-order/87503/4>
Whose 'phonebook????
I remember adapting our SOUNDEX implementation back in the 1980s to (sensibly) deal with non-English names.-a (At least I'd had a lot of practice with all the Greek migrants we had here in Oz, I remember
ringing a friend from school and asking him to ask his parents, "What
was the longest Greek surname they remembered?"-a :-) )
On 18 Jan 2026 10:02:33 GMT, Bernard Peek wrote:
Modern database software lets you select the collating sequence for
a table based on each languages' rules. That becomes the default
sort order for reports. But you can change that programmatically.
Reports should always use a collating sequence that puts the data
where the reader expects it to be. The physical format of the data
on disk should not make any difference.
It should be possible to choose the collating sequence for the
retrieved results as part of the query, rather than relying on a fixed
one assigned when the records are stored.
On 18 Jan 2026 12:18:42 GMT, Bernard Peek wrote:
On 2026-01-18, Evelyn C. Leeper <evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com> wrote:
On 1/17/26 17:50, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
The natural order (to humans, anyway) is commonly called
rCLphonebookrCY order.
<https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/calc-data-sorting-not-following-ascii-unicode-order/87503/4>
This assumes there is a single, natural order.
No, it assumes that the user knows what the standard order is.
Is there some assumption that I meant there could only be one
rCLphonebookrCY order? Obviously phonebooks in different countries/regions use whatever the local order is, that the residents of that
country/region are used to. ThatrCOs why I said rCLnatural orderrCY.
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 19:45:42 -0500, Someone Else wrote:
How do you reasonably sort people's names if you don't know whether
the surname precedes or follows the given name?
I like the French answer to this question: capitalize the family name (donrCOt call it rCLsurnamerCY), so you can spot it wherever it occurs:
Peter SELLERS
LUGOSI Bela
Marty FELDMAN
SAKAMOTO Ryuichi
CHOW Yun Fat
Michelle YEOH Choo Kheng
On 18/01/2026 09:50, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 16:15:22 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
Yes, there are international standards. But when someone put a bunch
of names in a spreadsheet and asked to have it sorted, it would
blithely ignore those standards, and sort 'ch' as 'c' followed by
'h'.
That depends on your spreadsheet. The natural order (to humans,
anyway) is commonly called rCLphonebookrCY order.
<https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/calc-data-sorting-not-following-ascii-unicode-order/87503/4>
Whose 'phonebook????
I remember adapting our SOUNDEX implementation back in the 1980s to (sensibly) deal with non-English names. (At least I'd had a lot of
practice with all the Greek migrants we had here in Oz, I remember
ringing a friend from school and asking him to ask his parents, "What
was the longest Greek surname they remembered?" :-) )
Similar problem: some movie promotion firm had software that treated
ZIP codes as numbers, but then dropped leading '0's from those
numbers.
For quite a while all the materials they sent Mark ended up going to someplace in Texas, because our ZIP code was 07747, which printed as
7747, which was treated as 77470 and ended up in Rock Island, Texas,
where someone had to hand-correct it.
On 2026-01-19, Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> wrote:
On 18/01/2026 09:50, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 16:15:22 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
Yes, there are international standards. But when someone put a bunch
of names in a spreadsheet and asked to have it sorted, it would
blithely ignore those standards, and sort 'ch' as 'c' followed by
'h'.
That depends on your spreadsheet. The natural order (to humans,
anyway) is commonly called rCLphonebookrCY order.
<https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/calc-data-sorting-not-following-ascii-unicode-order/87503/4>
Whose 'phonebook????
I remember adapting our SOUNDEX implementation back in the 1980s to
(sensibly) deal with non-English names. (At least I'd had a lot of
practice with all the Greek migrants we had here in Oz, I remember
ringing a friend from school and asking him to ask his parents, "What
was the longest Greek surname they remembered?" :-) )
There are cultures where full names include a concatenated list of ancestral names.
On 2026-01-18, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 19:45:42 -0500, Someone Else wrote:
How do you reasonably sort people's names if you don't know
whether the surname precedes or follows the given name?
I like the French answer to this question: capitalize the family
name (donrCOt call it rCLsurnamerCY), so you can spot it wherever it
occurs:
Peter SELLERS
LUGOSI Bela
Marty FELDMAN
SAKAMOTO Ryuichi
CHOW Yun Fat
Michelle YEOH Choo Kheng
That is doable but is a separate issue to collation sequences. To
use it you need to specify which is the family name somehow. At
data-entry time seems logical. This is probably one of the few
situations where AI could be trusted to get it right most of the
time.
It would also be a mistake for a French developer to store the text in upper-case on the assumption that it is the obvious "natural" form.
On 1/19/26 00:49, Robert Woodward wrote:
I have to do that with ISBNs in my spreadsheet, which is where Excel
In article <10kjkb5$3p7to$15@dont-email.me>,
Lawrence DrCOOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sun, 18 Jan 2026 08:35:24 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
... some movie promotion firm had software that treated ZIP codes
as numbers, but then dropped leading '0's from those numbers.
Microsoft Excel user!
I ran into a similar problem myself with Excel; I entered those
numbers as text to fix it.
would beat LibreOffice--in Excel a leading single quote doesn't
display but means "what follows is text", while in LibreOffice I
have to constantly be formatting the cells.
On 19/01/2026 09:15, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
Or Visi-Calc, or Lotus123, or Multiplan or sc or ...
On 1/18/26 16:46, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Sun, 18 Jan 2026 08:35:24 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
... some movie promotion firm had software that treated ZIP codes
as numbers, but then dropped leading '0's from those numbers.
Microsoft Excel user!
Could be LibreOffice.
If you wanted to you could programatically change the default sort
order depending on an individual user's preference. This isn't a
problem if users are aware of it. It is a problem in the US because
it's not an issue that most Americans will encounter.
On 18/01/2026 09:50, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 16:15:22 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
Yes, there are international standards. But when someone put a
bunch of names in a spreadsheet and asked to have it sorted, it
would blithely ignore those standards, and sort 'ch' as 'c'
followed by 'h'.
That depends on your spreadsheet. The natural order (to humans,
anyway) is commonly called rCLphonebookrCY order.
<https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/calc-data-sorting-not-following-ascii-unicode-order/87503/4>
Whose 'phonebook????
Cultures should be able to learn from one another, donrCOt you think? In
this case, the French came up with a reasonably simple solution to a
problem that happens quite frequently in a multi-cultural society.
No-one else seems to have anything better; why not use the French
solution?
On Mon, 19 Jan 2026 07:50:38 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
On 1/19/26 00:49, Robert Woodward wrote:
I have to do that with ISBNs in my spreadsheet, which is where Excel
In article <10kjkb5$3p7to$15@dont-email.me>,
Lawrence DrCOOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sun, 18 Jan 2026 08:35:24 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
... some movie promotion firm had software that treated ZIP codes
as numbers, but then dropped leading '0's from those numbers.
Microsoft Excel user!
I ran into a similar problem myself with Excel; I entered those
numbers as text to fix it.
would beat LibreOffice--in Excel a leading single quote doesn't
display but means "what follows is text", while in LibreOffice I
have to constantly be formatting the cells.
I just fired up LibreOffice Calc, and without changing any settings,
entered an example ISBN rCL978-3-16-148410-0rCY that I found online; it showed it just the way I typed it. I even tried changing that rCL9rCY in front to a leading zero, entered the result into a new cell, and it
kept the leading zero, without trying to format the value as a number.
Excel is notorious for (mis)interpreting entered data as unexpected
types. Geneticists, for example, have had to change the official names
of several genes, just to stop Excel from parsing them as dates.
Why are geneticists using Excel, of all things, to do important scientific >research? You may well ask ...
<http://www.eusprig.org/horror-stories.htm>
On 1/19/2026 6:56 AM, Bernard Peek wrote:
On 2026-01-19, Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> wrote:
On 18/01/2026 09:50, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 16:15:22 -0500, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
Yes, there are international standards. But when someone put a bunch >>>>> of names in a spreadsheet and asked to have it sorted, it would
blithely ignore those standards, and sort 'ch' as 'c' followed by
'h'.
That depends on your spreadsheet. The natural order (to humans,
anyway) is commonly called rCLphonebookrCY order.
<https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/calc-data-sorting-not-following-
ascii-unicode-order/87503/4>
Whose 'phonebook????
I remember adapting our SOUNDEX implementation back in the 1980s to
(sensibly) deal with non-English names.-a (At least I'd had a lot of
practice with all the Greek migrants we had here in Oz, I remember
ringing a friend from school and asking him to ask his parents, "What
was the longest Greek surname they remembered?"-a :-) )
There are cultures where full names include a concatenated list of
ancestral
names.
I've heard of people using Scandinavian patronymics (the system still
used in Iceland) like that, going back three or four generations (/or to
the first one going back who was famous/).
In 2010, the Academia Real Espa|#ola declared that 'ch' and 'll' were no longer letters in their own right, but digraphs (like 'ph' in English)....
As such words with 'ch' would be alphabetized after 'cg' and before
'ci', and those with 'll' would have that between 'lk' and 'lm'.
(The rule about two spaces between sentences seems to have fallen by the wayside years ago.)
On 19 Jan 2026 14:09:16 GMT, Bernard Peek wrote:
If you wanted to you could programatically change the default sort
order depending on an individual user's preference. This isn't a
problem if users are aware of it. It is a problem in the US because
it's not an issue that most Americans will encounter.
DonrCOt you find that surprising, considering what a wide multicultural
mix the US population has come from?
On 19 Jan 2026 14:50:13 GMT, Bernard Peek wrote:
On 2026-01-18, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 19:45:42 -0500, Someone Else wrote:
How do you reasonably sort people's names if you don't know
whether the surname precedes or follows the given name?
I like the French answer to this question: capitalize the family
name (donrCOt call it rCLsurnamerCY), so you can spot it wherever it
occurs:
Peter SELLERS
LUGOSI Bela
Marty FELDMAN
SAKAMOTO Ryuichi
CHOW Yun Fat
Michelle YEOH Choo Kheng
That is doable but is a separate issue to collation sequences. To
use it you need to specify which is the family name somehow. At
data-entry time seems logical. This is probably one of the few
situations where AI could be trusted to get it right most of the
time.
Or, you know, get the person to enter their name into the system that
way in the first place, and get it right from the horserCOs mouth.
It would also be a mistake for a French developer to store the text in
upper-case on the assumption that it is the obvious "natural" form.
Cultures should be able to learn from one another, donrCOt you think? In
this case, the French came up with a reasonably simple solution to a
problem that happens quite frequently in a multi-cultural society.
No-one else seems to have anything better; why not use the French
solution?
On 1/16/2026 10:31 AM, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
In 2010, the Academia Real Espa|#ola declared that 'ch' and 'll' were no...
longer letters in their own right, but digraphs (like 'ph' in English).
As such words with 'ch' would be alphabetized after 'cg' and before
'ci', and those with 'll' would have that between 'lk' and 'lm'.
(The rule about two spaces between sentences seems to have fallen by the
wayside years ago.)
I ignore many rules in life and keep on using two spaces between each sentence. Like this. And this.
I ignore many rules in life and keep on using two spaces between each sentence. Like this. And this.
On 2026-01-19, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On 19 Jan 2026 14:50:13 GMT, Bernard Peek wrote:
On 2026-01-18, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 19:45:42 -0500, Someone Else wrote:
How do you reasonably sort people's names if you don't know
whether the surname precedes or follows the given name?
I like the French answer to this question: capitalize the family
name (donrCOt call it rCLsurnamerCY), so you can spot it wherever it
occurs:
Peter SELLERS
LUGOSI Bela
Marty FELDMAN
SAKAMOTO Ryuichi
CHOW Yun Fat
Michelle YEOH Choo Kheng
That is doable but is a separate issue to collation sequences. To
use it you need to specify which is the family name somehow. At
data-entry time seems logical. This is probably one of the few
situations where AI could be trusted to get it right most of the
time.
Or, you know, get the person to enter their name into the system that
way in the first place, and get it right from the horserCOs mouth.
It would also be a mistake for a French developer to store the text in
upper-case on the assumption that it is the obvious "natural" form.
Cultures should be able to learn from one another, donrCOt you think? In
this case, the French came up with a reasonably simple solution to a
problem that happens quite frequently in a multi-cultural society.
No-one else seems to have anything better; why not use the French
solution?
If you designate a particular field as a family-name then you have a choice of which format to display or print it in. If you don't do that then you
are stuck with limited options.
The French solution seems eminently sensible to me but for systems developed for English users it is non-standard and will definitely cause problems. Users will complain that the system is broken because they can't enter lower-case names. Can tech-support come and fix it?
As far as possible systems should work the way that each user expects them to. "No surprises!" is a good rule of thumb.
On 1/20/2026 11:11 AM, Bernard Peek wrote:
On 2026-01-19, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On 19 Jan 2026 14:50:13 GMT, Bernard Peek wrote:
On 2026-01-18, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 19:45:42 -0500, Someone Else wrote:
How do you reasonably sort people's names if you don't know
whether the surname precedes or follows the given name?
I like the French answer to this question: capitalize the family
name (donrCOt call it rCLsurnamerCY), so you can spot it wherever it >>>>> occurs:
-a-a-a-a Peter SELLERS
-a-a-a-a LUGOSI Bela
-a-a-a-a Marty FELDMAN
-a-a-a-a SAKAMOTO Ryuichi
-a-a-a-a CHOW Yun Fat
-a-a-a-a Michelle YEOH Choo Kheng
That is doable but is a separate issue to collation sequences. To
use it you need to specify which is the family name somehow. At
data-entry time seems logical. This is probably one of the few
situations where AI could be trusted to get it right most of the
time.
Or, you know, get the person to enter their name into the system that
way in the first place, and get it right from the horserCOs mouth.
It would also be a mistake for a French developer to store the text in >>>> upper-case on the assumption that it is the obvious "natural" form.
Cultures should be able to learn from one another, donrCOt you think? In >>> this case, the French came up with a reasonably simple solution to a
problem that happens quite frequently in a multi-cultural society.
No-one else seems to have anything better; why not use the French
solution?
If you designate a particular field as a family-name then you have a
choice
of which format to display or print it in.-a If you don't do that then you >> are stuck with limited options.
The French solution seems eminently sensible to me but for systems
developed
for English users it is non-standard and will definitely cause problems.
Users will complain that the system is broken because they can't enter
lower-case names. Can tech-support come and fix it?
As far as possible systems should work the way that each user expects
them
to.-a "No surprises!" is a good rule of thumb.
I refer you to Patrick McKenzie's essay 'Falsehoods Programmers
Believe About Names'
https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe- about-names/?utm_source=copilot.com
It's short, so I'll just post it:
-----
I refer you to Patrick McKenzie's essay 'Falsehoods Programmers
Believe About Names'
https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/?utm_source=copilot.com
It's short, so I'll just post it:
-----
[Hal Heydyt]
I'll add another one...
When written in an English transliteration, all names contain at
least one vowel.
I won't so so far as to claim that the registration system I wrote
for a con for which I run ConReg avoids all--or even, perhaps, a
majority--of the cited misbeliefs, but it does permit the entry of a ficticious badge name with no attempt to require said badge name to
have anything in common with such "actual" name that the con member
supplies.
Dorothy J Heydt <djheydt@kithrup.com> wrote:
[Hal Heydyt]
I'll add another one...
When written in an English transliteration, all names contain at
least one vowel.
And don't forget xkcd.com/327
On 1/20/2026 11:11 AM, Bernard Peek wrote:
On 2026-01-19, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On 19 Jan 2026 14:50:13 GMT, Bernard Peek wrote:If you designate a particular field as a family-name then you have a
On 2026-01-18, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 19:45:42 -0500, Someone Else wrote:
How do you reasonably sort people's names if you don't know
whether the surname precedes or follows the given name?
I like the French answer to this question: capitalize the family
name (donrCOt call it rCLsurnamerCY), so you can spot it wherever it >>>>> occurs:
Peter SELLERS
LUGOSI Bela
Marty FELDMAN
SAKAMOTO Ryuichi
CHOW Yun Fat
Michelle YEOH Choo Kheng
That is doable but is a separate issue to collation sequences. To
use it you need to specify which is the family name somehow. At
data-entry time seems logical. This is probably one of the few
situations where AI could be trusted to get it right most of the
time.
Or, you know, get the person to enter their name into the system that
way in the first place, and get it right from the horserCOs mouth.
It would also be a mistake for a French developer to store the text in >>>> upper-case on the assumption that it is the obvious "natural" form.
Cultures should be able to learn from one another, donrCOt you think? In >>> this case, the French came up with a reasonably simple solution to a
problem that happens quite frequently in a multi-cultural society.
No-one else seems to have anything better; why not use the French
solution?
choice
of which format to display or print it in. If you don't do that then you
are stuck with limited options.
The French solution seems eminently sensible to me but for systems
developed
for English users it is non-standard and will definitely cause problems.
Users will complain that the system is broken because they can't enter
lower-case names. Can tech-support come and fix it?
As far as possible systems should work the way that each user
expects them
to. "No surprises!" is a good rule of thumb.
I refer you to Patrick McKenzie's essay 'Falsehoods Programmers
Believe About Names'
https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/?utm_source=copilot.com
It's short, so I'll just post it:
-----
John Graham-Cumming wrote an article today complaining about how a
computer system he was working with described his last name as having
invalid characters. It of course does not, because anything someone
tells you is their name is rCo by definition rCo an appropriate identifier for them. John was understandably vexed about this situation, and he
has every right to be, because names are central to our identities,
virtually by definition.
I have lived in Japan for several years, programming in a professional capacity, and I have broken many systems by the simple expedient of
being introduced into them. (Most people call me Patrick McKenzie,
but IrCOll acknowledge as correct any of six different rCLfullrCY names, any many systems I deal with will accept precisely none of them.)
Similarly, IrCOve worked with Big Freaking Enterprises which, by dint of doing business globally, have theoretically designed their systems to
allow all names to work in them. I have never seen a computer system
which handles names properly and doubt one exists, anywhere.
So, as a public service, IrCOm going to list assumptions your systems probably make about names. All of these assumptions are wrong. Try
to make less of them next time you write a system which touches names.
People have exactly one canonical full name.
People have exactly one full name which they go by.
People have, at this point in time, exactly one canonical full name.
People have, at this point in time, one full name which they go by.
People have exactly N names, for any value of N.
PeoplerCOs names fit within a certain defined amount of space.
PeoplerCOs names do not change.
PeoplerCOs names change, but only at a certain enumerated set of events.
PeoplerCOs names are written in ASCII.
PeoplerCOs names are written in any single character set.
PeoplerCOs names are all mapped in Unicode code points.
PeoplerCOs names are case sensitive.
PeoplerCOs names are case insensitive.
PeoplerCOs names sometimes have prefixes or suffixes, but you can safely ignore those.
PeoplerCOs names do not contain numbers.
PeoplerCOs names are not written in ALL CAPS.
PeoplerCOs names are not written in all lower case letters.
PeoplerCOs names have an order to them. Picking any ordering scheme
will automatically result in consistent ordering among all systems, as
long as both use the same ordering scheme for the same name.
PeoplerCOs first names and last names are, by necessity, different.
People have last names, family names, or anything else which is shared
by folks recognized as their relatives.
PeoplerCOs names are globally unique.
PeoplerCOs names are almost globally unique.
Alright alright but surely peoplerCOs names are diverse enough such that
no million people share the same name.
My system will never have to deal with names from China.
Or Japan.
Or Korea.
Or Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, Mexico,
Brazil, Peru, Russia, Sweden, Botswana, South Africa, Trinidad, Haiti, France, or the Klingon Empire, all of which have rCLweirdrCY naming
schemes in common use.
That Klingon Empire thing was a joke, right?
Confound your cultural relativism! People in my society, at least,
agree on one commonly accepted standard for names.
There exists an algorithm which transforms names and can be reversed losslessly. (Yes, yes, you can do it if your algorithm returns the
input. You get a gold star.)
I can safely assume that this dictionary of bad words contains no
peoplerCOs names in it.
PeoplerCOs names are assigned at birth.
OK, maybe not at birth, but at least pretty close to birth.
Alright, alright, within a year or so of birth.
Five years?
YourCOre kidding me, right?
Two different systems containing data about the same person will use
the same name for that person.
Two different data entry operators, given a personrCOs name, will by necessity enter bitwise equivalent strings on any single system, if
the system is well-designed.
People whose names break my system are weird outliers. They should
have had solid, acceptable names, like to#E+!on-oaA.
People have names.
This list is by no means exhaustive. If you need examples of real
names which disprove any of the above commonly held misconceptions, I
will happily introduce you to several. Feel free to add other
misconceptions in the comments, and refer people to this post the next
time they suggest a genius idea like a database table with a
first_name and last_name column.
My father entered the US Army at about the time the US entered WW
II. His name - William Albert. Two good English names, no problem right?
Well there was a problem: he had no middle name. The army couldn't cope
with that, so for his term of service in the European theatre he was
recorded as William NMN Albert (for "No Middle Name").
-- -Don_from_AZ-
My father entered the US Army at about the time the US entered WW
II. His name - William Albert. Two good English names, no problem right?
Well there was a problem: he had no middle name. The army couldn't cope
with that, so for his term of service in the European theatre he was
recorded as William NMN Albert (for "No Middle Name").
On 1/20/26 17:51, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
Dorothy J Heydt <djheydt@kithrup.com> wrote:
[Hal Heydt]
I'll add another one...
When written in an English transliteration, all names contain at
least one vowel.
And don't forget xkcd.com/327
Reminds me of the "suggestion" back when people got 80-column cards as
their bills for something that they should punch "##" (or whatever was
the "end of deck" code) in the first two columns.
Cryptoengineer <petertrei@gmail.com> writes:
On 1/20/2026 11:11 AM, Bernard Peek wrote:My father entered the US Army at about the time the US entered WW
On 2026-01-19, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On 19 Jan 2026 14:50:13 GMT, Bernard Peek wrote:If you designate a particular field as a family-name then you have a
On 2026-01-18, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 19:45:42 -0500, Someone Else wrote:
How do you reasonably sort people's names if you don't know
whether the surname precedes or follows the given name?
I like the French answer to this question: capitalize the family
name (donrCOt call it rCLsurnamerCY), so you can spot it wherever it >>>>>> occurs:
Peter SELLERS
LUGOSI Bela
Marty FELDMAN
SAKAMOTO Ryuichi
CHOW Yun Fat
Michelle YEOH Choo Kheng
That is doable but is a separate issue to collation sequences. To
use it you need to specify which is the family name somehow. At
data-entry time seems logical. This is probably one of the few
situations where AI could be trusted to get it right most of the
time.
Or, you know, get the person to enter their name into the system that
way in the first place, and get it right from the horserCOs mouth.
It would also be a mistake for a French developer to store the text in >>>>> upper-case on the assumption that it is the obvious "natural" form.
Cultures should be able to learn from one another, donrCOt you think? In >>>> this case, the French came up with a reasonably simple solution to a
problem that happens quite frequently in a multi-cultural society.
No-one else seems to have anything better; why not use the French
solution?
choice
of which format to display or print it in. If you don't do that then you >>> are stuck with limited options.
The French solution seems eminently sensible to me but for systems
developed
for English users it is non-standard and will definitely cause problems. >>> Users will complain that the system is broken because they can't enter
lower-case names. Can tech-support come and fix it?
As far as possible systems should work the way that each user
expects them
to. "No surprises!" is a good rule of thumb.
I refer you to Patrick McKenzie's essay 'Falsehoods Programmers
Believe About Names'
https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/?utm_source=copilot.com
It's short, so I'll just post it:
-----
John Graham-Cumming wrote an article today complaining about how a
computer system he was working with described his last name as having
invalid characters. It of course does not, because anything someone
tells you is their name is rCo by definition rCo an appropriate identifier >> for them. John was understandably vexed about this situation, and he
has every right to be, because names are central to our identities,
virtually by definition.
I have lived in Japan for several years, programming in a professional
capacity, and I have broken many systems by the simple expedient of
being introduced into them. (Most people call me Patrick McKenzie,
but IrCOll acknowledge as correct any of six different rCLfullrCY names, any >> many systems I deal with will accept precisely none of them.)
Similarly, IrCOve worked with Big Freaking Enterprises which, by dint of
doing business globally, have theoretically designed their systems to
allow all names to work in them. I have never seen a computer system
which handles names properly and doubt one exists, anywhere.
So, as a public service, IrCOm going to list assumptions your systems
probably make about names. All of these assumptions are wrong. Try
to make less of them next time you write a system which touches names.
People have exactly one canonical full name.
People have exactly one full name which they go by.
People have, at this point in time, exactly one canonical full name.
People have, at this point in time, one full name which they go by.
People have exactly N names, for any value of N.
PeoplerCOs names fit within a certain defined amount of space.
PeoplerCOs names do not change.
PeoplerCOs names change, but only at a certain enumerated set of events.
PeoplerCOs names are written in ASCII.
PeoplerCOs names are written in any single character set.
PeoplerCOs names are all mapped in Unicode code points.
PeoplerCOs names are case sensitive.
PeoplerCOs names are case insensitive.
PeoplerCOs names sometimes have prefixes or suffixes, but you can safely
ignore those.
PeoplerCOs names do not contain numbers.
PeoplerCOs names are not written in ALL CAPS.
PeoplerCOs names are not written in all lower case letters.
PeoplerCOs names have an order to them. Picking any ordering scheme
will automatically result in consistent ordering among all systems, as
long as both use the same ordering scheme for the same name.
PeoplerCOs first names and last names are, by necessity, different.
People have last names, family names, or anything else which is shared
by folks recognized as their relatives.
PeoplerCOs names are globally unique.
PeoplerCOs names are almost globally unique.
Alright alright but surely peoplerCOs names are diverse enough such that
no million people share the same name.
My system will never have to deal with names from China.
Or Japan.
Or Korea.
Or Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, Mexico,
Brazil, Peru, Russia, Sweden, Botswana, South Africa, Trinidad, Haiti,
France, or the Klingon Empire, all of which have rCLweirdrCY naming
schemes in common use.
That Klingon Empire thing was a joke, right?
Confound your cultural relativism! People in my society, at least,
agree on one commonly accepted standard for names.
There exists an algorithm which transforms names and can be reversed
losslessly. (Yes, yes, you can do it if your algorithm returns the
input. You get a gold star.)
I can safely assume that this dictionary of bad words contains no
peoplerCOs names in it.
PeoplerCOs names are assigned at birth.
OK, maybe not at birth, but at least pretty close to birth.
Alright, alright, within a year or so of birth.
Five years?
YourCOre kidding me, right?
Two different systems containing data about the same person will use
the same name for that person.
Two different data entry operators, given a personrCOs name, will by
necessity enter bitwise equivalent strings on any single system, if
the system is well-designed.
People whose names break my system are weird outliers. They should
have had solid, acceptable names, like to#E+!on-oaA.
People have names.
This list is by no means exhaustive. If you need examples of real
names which disprove any of the above commonly held misconceptions, I
will happily introduce you to several. Feel free to add other
misconceptions in the comments, and refer people to this post the next
time they suggest a genius idea like a database table with a
first_name and last_name column.
II. His name - William Albert. Two good English names, no problem right?
Well there was a problem: he had no middle name. The army couldn't cope
with that, so for his term of service in the European theatre he was
recorded as William NMN Albert (for "No Middle Name").
--
-Don_from_AZ-
In article <87cy33iuye.fsf@comcast.net.invalid>,
Don_from_AZ <djatechNOSPAM@comcast.net.invalid> wrote:
Cryptoengineer <petertrei@gmail.com> writes:
On 1/20/2026 11:11 AM, Bernard Peek wrote:https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/?utm_source=copilot.com
On 2026-01-19, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On 19 Jan 2026 14:50:13 GMT, Bernard Peek wrote:If you designate a particular field as a family-name then you have a
On 2026-01-18, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 19:45:42 -0500, Someone Else wrote:
How do you reasonably sort people's names if you don't know
whether the surname precedes or follows the given name?
I like the French answer to this question: capitalize the family >>>>>>> name (donrCOt call it rCLsurnamerCY), so you can spot it wherever it >>>>>>> occurs:
Peter SELLERS
LUGOSI Bela
Marty FELDMAN
SAKAMOTO Ryuichi
CHOW Yun Fat
Michelle YEOH Choo Kheng
That is doable but is a separate issue to collation sequences. To
use it you need to specify which is the family name somehow. At
data-entry time seems logical. This is probably one of the few
situations where AI could be trusted to get it right most of the
time.
Or, you know, get the person to enter their name into the system that >>>>> way in the first place, and get it right from the horserCOs mouth.
It would also be a mistake for a French developer to store the text in >>>>>> upper-case on the assumption that it is the obvious "natural" form. >>>>>Cultures should be able to learn from one another, donrCOt you think? In >>>>> this case, the French came up with a reasonably simple solution to a >>>>> problem that happens quite frequently in a multi-cultural society.
No-one else seems to have anything better; why not use the French
solution?
choice
of which format to display or print it in. If you don't do that then you >>>> are stuck with limited options.
The French solution seems eminently sensible to me but for systems
developed
for English users it is non-standard and will definitely cause problems. >>>> Users will complain that the system is broken because they can't enter >>>> lower-case names. Can tech-support come and fix it?
As far as possible systems should work the way that each user
expects them
to. "No surprises!" is a good rule of thumb.
I refer you to Patrick McKenzie's essay 'Falsehoods Programmers
Believe About Names'
My father entered the US Army at about the time the US entered WW
It's short, so I'll just post it:
-----
John Graham-Cumming wrote an article today complaining about how a
computer system he was working with described his last name as having
invalid characters. It of course does not, because anything someone
tells you is their name is rCo by definition rCo an appropriate identifier >>> for them. John was understandably vexed about this situation, and he
has every right to be, because names are central to our identities,
virtually by definition.
I have lived in Japan for several years, programming in a professional
capacity, and I have broken many systems by the simple expedient of
being introduced into them. (Most people call me Patrick McKenzie,
but IrCOll acknowledge as correct any of six different rCLfullrCY names, any
many systems I deal with will accept precisely none of them.)
Similarly, IrCOve worked with Big Freaking Enterprises which, by dint of >>> doing business globally, have theoretically designed their systems to
allow all names to work in them. I have never seen a computer system
which handles names properly and doubt one exists, anywhere.
So, as a public service, IrCOm going to list assumptions your systems
probably make about names. All of these assumptions are wrong. Try
to make less of them next time you write a system which touches names.
People have exactly one canonical full name.
People have exactly one full name which they go by.
People have, at this point in time, exactly one canonical full name.
People have, at this point in time, one full name which they go by.
People have exactly N names, for any value of N.
PeoplerCOs names fit within a certain defined amount of space.
PeoplerCOs names do not change.
PeoplerCOs names change, but only at a certain enumerated set of events. >>>
PeoplerCOs names are written in ASCII.
PeoplerCOs names are written in any single character set.
PeoplerCOs names are all mapped in Unicode code points.
PeoplerCOs names are case sensitive.
PeoplerCOs names are case insensitive.
PeoplerCOs names sometimes have prefixes or suffixes, but you can safely >>> ignore those.
PeoplerCOs names do not contain numbers.
PeoplerCOs names are not written in ALL CAPS.
PeoplerCOs names are not written in all lower case letters.
PeoplerCOs names have an order to them. Picking any ordering scheme
will automatically result in consistent ordering among all systems, as
long as both use the same ordering scheme for the same name.
PeoplerCOs first names and last names are, by necessity, different.
People have last names, family names, or anything else which is shared
by folks recognized as their relatives.
PeoplerCOs names are globally unique.
PeoplerCOs names are almost globally unique.
Alright alright but surely peoplerCOs names are diverse enough such that >>> no million people share the same name.
My system will never have to deal with names from China.
Or Japan.
Or Korea.
Or Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, Mexico,
Brazil, Peru, Russia, Sweden, Botswana, South Africa, Trinidad, Haiti,
France, or the Klingon Empire, all of which have rCLweirdrCY naming
schemes in common use.
That Klingon Empire thing was a joke, right?
Confound your cultural relativism! People in my society, at least,
agree on one commonly accepted standard for names.
There exists an algorithm which transforms names and can be reversed
losslessly. (Yes, yes, you can do it if your algorithm returns the
input. You get a gold star.)
I can safely assume that this dictionary of bad words contains no
peoplerCOs names in it.
PeoplerCOs names are assigned at birth.
OK, maybe not at birth, but at least pretty close to birth.
Alright, alright, within a year or so of birth.
Five years?
YourCOre kidding me, right?
Two different systems containing data about the same person will use
the same name for that person.
Two different data entry operators, given a personrCOs name, will by
necessity enter bitwise equivalent strings on any single system, if
the system is well-designed.
People whose names break my system are weird outliers. They should
have had solid, acceptable names, like to#E+!on-oaA.
People have names.
This list is by no means exhaustive. If you need examples of real
names which disprove any of the above commonly held misconceptions, I
will happily introduce you to several. Feel free to add other
misconceptions in the comments, and refer people to this post the next
time they suggest a genius idea like a database table with a
first_name and last_name column.
II. His name - William Albert. Two good English names, no problem right?
Well there was a problem: he had no middle name. The army couldn't cope
with that, so for his term of service in the European theatre he was
recorded as William NMN Albert (for "No Middle Name").
--
-Don_from_AZ-
[Hal Heydt]
My mother and all her siblings had two middle names. Wonder what
they've have done with that...
My father entered the US Army at about the time the US entered WW
II. His name - William Albert. Two good English names, no problem right?
Well there was a problem: he had no middle name. The army couldn't cope
with that, so for his term of service in the European theatre he was
recorded as William NMN Albert (for "No Middle Name").
On 21/01/2026 13:02, Don_from_AZ wrote:
[SNIP]
My father entered the US Army at about the time the US entered WW
II. His name - William Albert. Two good English names, no problem right?
Well there was a problem: he had no middle name. The army couldn't cope
with that, so for his term of service in the European theatre he was
recorded as William NMN Albert (for "No Middle Name").
Oh, it's still alive and happening in the US military.
A friend of mine married a USN pilot back around 1990, and moved to the
USA, sensibly enough.
When she went to do the things that military spouses (spice??-a :-) )
have to do about being recognised by the military she was told, "Ain't nobody don't have a middle name, honey", and in exasperation she gave in
and plonked her Grand-mother's maiden name in the box.
Post-divorce she decided she liked Grandma's maiden name, so changed her surname to that.-a :-)
Patrick McKenzie's article:--
People have exactly one canonical full name.
People have exactly one full name which they go by.
People have, at this point in time, exactly one canonical full name.
People have, at this point in time, one full name which they go by.
People have exactly N names, for any value of N.
PeoplerCOs names fit within a certain defined amount of space.
PeoplerCOs names do not change.
PeoplerCOs names change, but only at a certain enumerated set of events.
PeoplerCOs names are written in ASCII.
PeoplerCOs names are written in any single character set.
PeoplerCOs names are all mapped in Unicode code points.
PeoplerCOs names are case sensitive.
PeoplerCOs names are case insensitive.
PeoplerCOs names sometimes have prefixes or suffixes, but you can safely ignore those.
PeoplerCOs names do not contain numbers.
PeoplerCOs names are not written in ALL CAPS.
PeoplerCOs names are not written in all lower case letters.
PeoplerCOs names have an order to them.-a Picking any ordering scheme will automatically result in consistent ordering among all systems, as long
as both use the same ordering scheme for the same name.
PeoplerCOs first names and last names are, by necessity, different.
People have last names, family names, or anything else which is shared
by folks recognized as their relatives.
PeoplerCOs names are globally unique.
PeoplerCOs names are almost globally unique.
Alright alright but surely peoplerCOs names are diverse enough such that
no million people share the same name.
My system will never have to deal with names from China.
Or Japan.
Or Korea.
Or Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, Mexico,
Brazil, Peru, Russia, Sweden, Botswana, South Africa, Trinidad, Haiti, France, or the Klingon Empire, all of which have rCLweirdrCY naming schemes in common use.
That Klingon Empire thing was a joke, right?
Confound your cultural relativism!-a People in my society, at least,
agree on one commonly accepted standard for names.
There exists an algorithm which transforms names and can be reversed losslessly.-a (Yes, yes, you can do it if your algorithm returns the input.-a You get a gold star.)
I can safely assume that this dictionary of bad words contains no
peoplerCOs names in it.
PeoplerCOs names are assigned at birth.
OK, maybe not at birth, but at least pretty close to birth.
Alright, alright, within a year or so of birth.
Five years?
YourCOre kidding me, right?
Two different systems containing data about the same person will use the same name for that person.
Two different data entry operators, given a personrCOs name, will by necessity enter bitwise equivalent strings on any single system, if the system is well-designed.
People whose names break my system are weird outliers.-a They should have had solid, acceptable names, like to#E+!on-oaA.
People have names.
When she went to do the things that military spouses (spice?? :-) )
have to do about being recognised by the military she was told,
"Ain't nobody don't have a middle name, honey", and in exasperation
she gave in and plonked her Grand-mother's maiden name in the box.
Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
I ignore many rules in life and keep on using two spaces between each
sentence. Like this. And this.
As do I. It just looks better. And is more compatible with emacs.
And apparently also with vi.
Speaking of sort orders, there's one person here whose name has been >variously rendered as:
Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?=
Lawrence D\377Oliveiro
Lawrence D\342\200\231Oliveiro
Lawrence D\303\277Oliveiro
Lawrence D\222Oliveiro
I don't know what chacacter(s) belong between the "D" and the "live,"
nor do I know what the intended sort order is.
[Hal Heydt]
My mother and all her siblings had two middle names. Wonder what
they've have done with that...
On 1/21/26 00:36, Gary R. Schmidt wrote:
On 21/01/2026 13:02, Don_from_AZ wrote:
[SNIP]
My father entered the US Army at about the time the US entered WW
II. His name - William Albert. Two good English names, no problem right? >>> Well there was a problem: he had no middle name. The army couldn't cope
with that, so for his term of service in the European theatre he was
recorded as William NMN Albert (for "No Middle Name").
Oh, it's still alive and happening in the US military.
A friend of mine married a USN pilot back around 1990, and moved to
the USA, sensibly enough.
When she went to do the things that military spouses (spice??-a :-) )
have to do about being recognised by the military she was told, "Ain't
nobody don't have a middle name, honey", and in exasperation she gave
in and plonked her Grand-mother's maiden name in the box.
Post-divorce she decided she liked Grandma's maiden name, so changed
her surname to that.-a :-)
As noted elsewhere in this thread, I had no middle name, When I got
married, I did what my mother did and used my birth name as my middle
name. I thought that was what all women did.
(Actually Spanish naming conventions are fairly close to this.)
As noted elsewhere in this thread, I had no middle name, When I got
married, I did what my mother did and used my birth name as my middle
name. I thought that was what all women did.
(Actually Spanish naming conventions are fairly close to this.)
On 1/20/26 21:02, Don_from_AZ wrote:My wife did that as well, replacing her middle name with her birth (or "family") name and taking my last name when we married. As did her
My father entered the US Army at about the time the US entered WW
II. His name - William Albert. Two good English names, no problem right?
Well there was a problem: he had no middle name. The army couldn't cope
with that, so for his term of service in the European theatre he was
recorded as William NMN Albert (for "No Middle Name").
Probably true of my father as well. He didn't have a middle name, nor
did my mother, nor did my brother nor I. I did what my mother did and
used my birth name as my middle name. I thought that was what all
women did.
My father also had "PNP" for his religion on his dog tags: "Protestant
No Preference". These days that doesn't even show up in places like AcronymFinder.
[Hal Heydt]
My mother and all her siblings had two middle names. Wonder what
they've have done with that...
In article <10kpa4e$1nl0e$1@dont-email.me>,
Evelyn C. Leeper <evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com> wrote:
On 1/20/26 17:51, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
Dorothy J Heydt <djheydt@kithrup.com> wrote:
[Hal Heydt]
I'll add another one...
When written in an English transliteration, all names contain at
least one vowel.
And don't forget xkcd.com/327
Reminds me of the "suggestion" back when people got 80-column cards as
their bills for something that they should punch "##" (or whatever was
the "end of deck" code) in the first two columns.
[Hal Heydt]
If the system was really old, it might have been two record marks
(0-2-8 punch, for which there is no keyboard entry). If it
was after the IBM S/360 came out, it would have been "//".
I should note regarding some of my prior remarks that the length
limitation for names in my ConReg system isn't due to database or
storage limits (with the data from 20 years of annual cons
on it, the mass storage device is using 10% of the available
space). The limit is: How much will fit on the badge? With the
font size I'm using on a 3x4 badge, that's two lines of 17
characters each.
On 1/20/2026 10:07 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
In article <87cy33iuye.fsf@comcast.net.invalid>,
Don_from_AZ-a <djatechNOSPAM@comcast.net.invalid> wrote:
Cryptoengineer <petertrei@gmail.com> writes:
On 1/20/2026 11:11 AM, Bernard Peek wrote:https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-
On 2026-01-19, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On 19 Jan 2026 14:50:13 GMT, Bernard Peek wrote:If you designate a particular field as a family-name then you have a >>>>> choice
On 2026-01-18, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 19:45:42 -0500, Someone Else wrote:
How do you reasonably sort people's names if you don't know
whether the surname precedes or follows the given name?
I like the French answer to this question: capitalize the family >>>>>>>> name (donrCOt call it rCLsurnamerCY), so you can spot it wherever it >>>>>>>> occurs:
-a-a-a-a-a Peter SELLERS
-a-a-a-a-a LUGOSI Bela
-a-a-a-a-a Marty FELDMAN
-a-a-a-a-a SAKAMOTO Ryuichi
-a-a-a-a-a CHOW Yun Fat
-a-a-a-a-a Michelle YEOH Choo Kheng
That is doable but is a separate issue to collation sequences. To >>>>>>> use it you need to specify which is the family name somehow. At
data-entry time seems logical. This is probably one of the few
situations where AI could be trusted to get it right most of the >>>>>>> time.
Or, you know, get the person to enter their name into the system that >>>>>> way in the first place, and get it right from the horserCOs mouth. >>>>>>
It would also be a mistake for a French developer to store theCultures should be able to learn from one another, donrCOt you
text in
upper-case on the assumption that it is the obvious "natural" form. >>>>>>
think? In
this case, the French came up with a reasonably simple solution to a >>>>>> problem that happens quite frequently in a multi-cultural society. >>>>>> No-one else seems to have anything better; why not use the French
solution?
of which format to display or print it in.-a If you don't do that
then you
are stuck with limited options.
The French solution seems eminently sensible to me but for systems
developed
for English users it is non-standard and will definitely cause
problems.
Users will complain that the system is broken because they can't enter >>>>> lower-case names. Can tech-support come and fix it?
As far as possible systems should work the way that each user
expects them
to.-a "No surprises!" is a good rule of thumb.
I refer you to Patrick McKenzie's essay 'Falsehoods Programmers
Believe About Names'
about-names/?utm_source=copilot.com
My father entered the US Army at about the time the US entered WW
It's short, so I'll just post it:
-----
John Graham-Cumming wrote an article today complaining about how a
computer system he was working with described his last name as having
invalid characters.-a It of course does not, because anything someone
tells you is their name is rCo by definition rCo an appropriate identifier >>>> for them.-a John was understandably vexed about this situation, and he >>>> has every right to be, because names are central to our identities,
virtually by definition.
I have lived in Japan for several years, programming in a professional >>>> capacity, and I have broken many systems by the simple expedient of
being introduced into them.-a (Most people call me Patrick McKenzie,
but IrCOll acknowledge as correct any of six different rCLfullrCY names, any
many systems I deal with will accept precisely none of them.)
Similarly, IrCOve worked with Big Freaking Enterprises which, by dint of >>>> doing business globally, have theoretically designed their systems to
allow all names to work in them.-a I have never seen a computer system >>>> which handles names properly and doubt one exists, anywhere.
So, as a public service, IrCOm going to list assumptions your systems
probably make about names.-a All of these assumptions are wrong.-a Try >>>> to make less of them next time you write a system which touches names. >>>>
People have exactly one canonical full name.
People have exactly one full name which they go by.
People have, at this point in time, exactly one canonical full name.
People have, at this point in time, one full name which they go by.
People have exactly N names, for any value of N.
PeoplerCOs names fit within a certain defined amount of space.
PeoplerCOs names do not change.
PeoplerCOs names change, but only at a certain enumerated set of events. >>>>
PeoplerCOs names are written in ASCII.
PeoplerCOs names are written in any single character set.
PeoplerCOs names are all mapped in Unicode code points.
PeoplerCOs names are case sensitive.
PeoplerCOs names are case insensitive.
PeoplerCOs names sometimes have prefixes or suffixes, but you can safely >>>> ignore those.
PeoplerCOs names do not contain numbers.
PeoplerCOs names are not written in ALL CAPS.
PeoplerCOs names are not written in all lower case letters.
PeoplerCOs names have an order to them.-a Picking any ordering scheme
will automatically result in consistent ordering among all systems, as >>>> long as both use the same ordering scheme for the same name.
PeoplerCOs first names and last names are, by necessity, different.
People have last names, family names, or anything else which is shared >>>> by folks recognized as their relatives.
PeoplerCOs names are globally unique.
PeoplerCOs names are almost globally unique.
Alright alright but surely peoplerCOs names are diverse enough such that >>>> no million people share the same name.
My system will never have to deal with names from China.
Or Japan.
Or Korea.
Or Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, Mexico,
Brazil, Peru, Russia, Sweden, Botswana, South Africa, Trinidad, Haiti, >>>> France, or the Klingon Empire, all of which have rCLweirdrCY naming
schemes in common use.
That Klingon Empire thing was a joke, right?
Confound your cultural relativism!-a People in my society, at least,
agree on one commonly accepted standard for names.
There exists an algorithm which transforms names and can be reversed
losslessly.-a (Yes, yes, you can do it if your algorithm returns the
input.-a You get a gold star.)
I can safely assume that this dictionary of bad words contains no
peoplerCOs names in it.
PeoplerCOs names are assigned at birth.
OK, maybe not at birth, but at least pretty close to birth.
Alright, alright, within a year or so of birth.
Five years?
YourCOre kidding me, right?
Two different systems containing data about the same person will use
the same name for that person.
Two different data entry operators, given a personrCOs name, will by
necessity enter bitwise equivalent strings on any single system, if
the system is well-designed.
People whose names break my system are weird outliers.-a They should
have had solid, acceptable names, like to#E+!on-oaA.
People have names.
This list is by no means exhaustive.-a If you need examples of real
names which disprove any of the above commonly held misconceptions, I
will happily introduce you to several.-a Feel free to add other
misconceptions in the comments, and refer people to this post the next >>>> time they suggest a genius idea like a database table with a
first_name and last_name column.
II. His name - William Albert. Two good English names, no problem right? >>> Well there was a problem: he had no middle name. The army couldn't cope
with that, so for his term of service in the European theatre he was
recorded as William NMN Albert (for "No Middle Name").
--
-Don_from_AZ-
[Hal Heydt]
My mother and all her siblings had two middle names.-a Wonder what
they've have done with that...
Almost all Catholics have, at least, two middle names:-a The one they're given at birth (or baptism) and the one they choose at Confirmation.
I myself have a name which though very short, has a spelling
that's atypical for English speakers. I have to spell it out
Every Single Time someone has to enter it into a system.
On 2026-01-21, Dorothy J Heydt <djheydt@kithrup.com> wrote:
[Hal Heydt]
My mother and all her siblings had two middle names. Wonder what
they've have done with that...
When we started building a convention membership database we tested it with
"Anthony Neil Gerald Mittenshaw-Hodge"
I can't remember whether we ever thanked him for his assistance.
On Wed, 21 Jan 2026 06:07:54 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
---snip---
[Hal Heydt]
My mother and all her siblings had two middle names. Wonder what
they've have done with that...
She who must be obeyed has two middle names she only uses if she has to...
But her first name is Anne, and she gets asked the same question over and over
again.
So she usually gives her name as "Anne, with an e".
Hijinks obviously ensue!
Alan Woodford
The Greying Lensman
Actually, I ran into the [Scunthorpe] problem when I tried to list a
book for sale on Amazon. I wanted to describe it as similar to the
works of Philip K. Dick.
Yep, you guessed it. Amazon kept rejecting my description until I
received an epiphany and changed it to "similar to the works of
PKD."
Then the city hired someone with the last name of "Ng".
Soon after I left, Nokia died, refusing to update their smartphone
technology to Apple/Android standards.
On 1/21/26 00:36, Gary R. Schmidt wrote:
On 21/01/2026 13:02, Don_from_AZ wrote:
[SNIP]
My father entered the US Army at about the time the US entered WW
II. His name - William Albert. Two good English names, no problem right? >>> Well there was a problem: he had no middle name. The army couldn't cope
with that, so for his term of service in the European theatre he was
recorded as William NMN Albert (for "No Middle Name").
Oh, it's still alive and happening in the US military.
A friend of mine married a USN pilot back around 1990, and moved to
the USA, sensibly enough.
When she went to do the things that military spouses (spice??-a :-) )
have to do about being recognised by the military she was told, "Ain't
nobody don't have a middle name, honey", and in exasperation she gave
in and plonked her Grand-mother's maiden name in the box.
Post-divorce she decided she liked Grandma's maiden name, so changed
her surname to that.-a :-)
As noted elsewhere in this thread, I had no middle name, When I got
married, I did what my mother did and used my birth name as my middle
name. I thought that was what all women did.
(Actually Spanish naming conventions are fairly close to this.)
On Tue, 20 Jan 2026 22:11:26 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
Then the city hired someone with the last name of "Ng".
Filipino pronunciation, or Chinese pronunciation?
On Wed, 21 Jan 2026 17:00:46 -0500, Cryptoengineer wrote:
Soon after I left, Nokia died, refusing to update their smartphone
technology to Apple/Android standards.
To be fair, there was no way anybody could rCLupdate to Apple standardsrCY without being sued by Apple.
As for (initially) spurning Android, blame it on their CEO of the
time, Stephen Elop. He came from Microsoft, and he seemed to see it as
his job to cosy his new fiefdom up to his ex-employer as closely as
was physically possible. So he committed Nokia utterly and completely
to Windows Phone, ignoring any suggestion that such a hacky adaptation
of desktop-centric technology might not do so well in the mobile
market.
When he took over Nokia, though, there was a group in the company
already working on a Linux-based phone, the N9. He was too late to
kill the project, but he was able to ensure that there would never be
any follow-on products in that series, or even much of a manufacturing
run.
So the N9 came out in very limited markets, to rave reviews. It
promptly sold out, and that was the end of the one bright spot the
company enjoyed under Elop.
Heard an interview with James Woods today and he told of when his wife >ordered a coffee at Starbucks. They asked her name and she said "Sara,
no h". When she picked up the cup it had Saranoh on it. It's now a
family joke.
On Tue, 20 Jan 2026 22:11:26 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
Then the city hired someone with the last name of "Ng".
Filipino pronunciation, or Chinese pronunciation?
One of the problems I observed was that Nokia clung on far too long
to Symbian, in which you developed apps using a half-baked version
of C++. It was difficult, to say the least.
In article <10ksgco$2opqp$3@dont-email.me>,
Lawrence D|+Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Tue, 20 Jan 2026 22:11:26 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
Then the city hired someone with the last name of "Ng".
Filipino pronunciation, or Chinese pronunciation?
I read about it, so no idea about pronunciation.
Jay Morris <morrisj@epsilon3.me> wrote:
Heard an interview with James Woods today and he told of when his wife
ordered a coffee at Starbucks. They asked her name and she said "Sara,
no h". When she picked up the cup it had Saranoh on it. It's now a
family joke.
Yes, there was a character in Catch 22 who was named "R.B. Jones" and
because the Army couldn't handle initials but only names, he said he
was "R. only, B. only, Jones" which was encoded as "Ronly Bonly Jones." --scott
In article <mtd0f5F49i7U1@mid.individual.net>,
Bernard Peek <bap@shrdlu.com> wrote:
On 2026-01-21, Dorothy J Heydt <djheydt@kithrup.com> wrote:
[Hal Heydt]
My mother and all her siblings had two middle names. Wonder what
they've have done with that...
When we started building a convention membership database we tested it with >>
"Anthony Neil Gerald Mittenshaw-Hodge"
I can't remember whether we ever thanked him for his assistance.
[Hal Heydt]
I would have no problem entering that name and storing it in the
database. What gets printed on a badge would have to be a bit
shorter, though.
I allow for 32 characters for "first name" and another 32
characters for "last name", plus an optional one character
"middle initial".
On 2026-01-22, Dorothy J Heydt <djheydt@kithrup.com> wrote:
In article <mtd0f5F49i7U1@mid.individual.net>,
Bernard Peek <bap@shrdlu.com> wrote:
On 2026-01-21, Dorothy J Heydt <djheydt@kithrup.com> wrote:
[Hal Heydt]
My mother and all her siblings had two middle names. Wonder what
they've have done with that...
When we started building a convention membership database we tested it with >>>
"Anthony Neil Gerald Mittenshaw-Hodge"
I can't remember whether we ever thanked him for his assistance.
[Hal Heydt]
I would have no problem entering that name and storing it in the
database. What gets printed on a badge would have to be a bit
shorter, though.
I allow for 32 characters for "first name" and another 32
characters for "last name", plus an optional one character
"middle initial".
It is possible to calculate the length of text in a given font and reduce it >to fit. I'm not sure that it would be a better solution than yours. >Possibly "A triumph of technology over common-sense" as one of my colleagues >called a product that he was supposed to support.
Lets not forget Major Major Major Major.
In article <099omkhf7istvj5f72g9j5rdhd6c82frfj@4ax.com>, someone.else@example.com.invalid (Someone Else) wrote:
How about the apostrophe in O'Brien? And remember that your
sort order has to be defined to take into considerations you've never
come across.
Reminds me of a story I heard many years ago where someone with an Irish
name couldn't find his name in the telephone directory. Turned out he
had been entered as 0'Brien and was right at the front of the book.
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