assorted comments

[Laurence Horn]

>Good point, Margaret! Thank you for the reminder. [Warning: anecdote follows.]
>
>Back in 1973, at the LSA Summer Linguistic Institute at Michigan, I
>met a Quebecoise named "Elise Piquette." (BTW, Larry, didn't we meet
>at this same LI?)

Makes sense, although I mostly remember our co-occurring in the wilds
of Cambridge.

>After we became acquainted, she told me that her
>grandmother had, by coincidence, actually met Wilson Pickett, one
>time, when he was in Quebec City for a concert. They chatted, and
>chuckled over the fact that they, who shared a surname but who came
>from such different backgrounds, should have met.
>
>"Shared a _surname_"? Eh? I didn't get it. Oh, Elise went on to
>explain, her generation was the first to frenchify the family name as
>"Piquette." Theretofore, the family had retained its original
>Anglo-Saxon name of "Pickett." Okay, now I got it. Then, for no
>particular reason, I asked her what her father's name was. She
>replied, "Orville Pickett," pronouncing it in the ordinary,
>North-American-English manner.
>
>I was barely able to keep a straight face. All these years later, I'm
>still asking myself: "'Orville Pickett'?! What kind of name is that
>for a nice, French-Canadian boy?!"
>
While we (or at least I) do tend to think of "Orville" as an echt
backwoods type name, maybe partly because of the eponymous Mr.
Redenbacher, it is a nice old French name, with a town in Normandy (=
Gold-town?) to show for it.

LH

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