Vals Kilmer (like "attorneys general"?)

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Mar 27, 2006, at 8:39 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> Isn't the modification of first names the whole point of surnames?
> But, be
> that as it may, "Vals Kilmer," not "Val Kilmers" and, e.g. "Messrs.
> Smith," not "Mr.
> Smiths," were taught simply as convention...

i seem to have lost my way in this whole discussion.  the original
quote said "when the Vals [representations of Val Kilmer's head]
first popped up", with "Vals", not "Vals Kilmer".  this was then
described as having used "Vals Kilmer" as the plural of "Val Kilmer",
similar to "attorneys general".  but i don't see any occurrences of
"Vals Kilmer" in the original.

"Vals" is the plural of "Val", and can be used to denote more than
one person named Val, multiple occurrences of a person named Val,
multiple representations of someone named Val, etc.  the plural of
"Val Kilmer" is "Val Kilmers", and it can be similarly to denote more
than one person named Val Kilmer ("How many Val Kilmers do you
know?"), multiple occurrences of a person named Val Kilmer, etc.

i have never heard or read FN + LN pluralized as FNs + LN, rather
than FN + LNs.  i *certainly* have never seen a prescription for FNs
+ LN.  i am astonished that wilson was taught such a thing.  (no
surprise that he was taught "Messrs." as the plural of the prefix
(PR) "Mr." in the construction "the PRs LN"; this is a minor pattern
in (very formal) english naming, also extending to things like "the
Drs. Brown", etc.  the construction denotes not just more than one
person PR + LN, but such people forming some sort of group, much as
the (stylistically unmarked) construction "the LNs" -- i.e., "the
Zwickys" -- does.)  can anyone supply me with *any* published
prescription for FNs + LN as the plural of FN + LN?

FN + LN is a N-N compound construction, parallel in many ways to
place names like "Fifth Avenue" and "Johnson City".  such compounds
are pluralized on their second elements, and when they are proper
(rather than common) nouns, their default accenting is secondary-
primary.

"attorney general" and a few other nominals borrowed from french
(where they were N-Adj combinations) originally were pluralized as in
french, on the head N, which happens to be the first word in the
combination.  such plurals are often prescribed in the handbooks.
but there is powerful pressure to treat them like ordinary english
compounds, with the result that for many people (i am one) "attorneys
general" sounds way too awkwardly non-english, but "attorney
generals" isn't fully acceptable either, because it's officially
"wrong".

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)

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