Re: Underline element.

Patrick Garies wrote:

> I don’t know why you 
> would propose “familyname” instead of “surname” though. According to 
> http://www.m-w.com/ [1], the term family name is a synonym of the term 
> surname; the definition of the term surname is “an added name derived 
> from occupation or other circumstance”, which seems pretty generic to me 
> [2]. I don’t know which languages/cultures “surname” would be 
> inapplicable to.

Fair comment.  For reasons that are no longer clear, I was under
the impression that a surname always /followed/ a given name;
I can find no evidence to support this, so I withdraw my
objection without reservation.  "Familyname" may, however, be
more transparent to non-native speakers.

Philip TAYLOR

Received on Monday, 14 January 2008 22:36:35 UTC