"folk" with an L

[Victor Steinbok]

An older, but by no means exclusive, case of the same nature is
al-Khwārizmī, who was supposedly named for his place of birth. Of
course, Bīrūnī was born in Khwaresm as well, but he he did not have the
same moniker added to his name. Then there is the whole von/van/van
der/de/des/di/d' thing (the list is not exhaustive).

I don't want to get into the whole thing about Slavic surname suffixes,
ethnic identity and places of origin. But there is a story there too...

And didn't we have a discussion on English peas, French fries, etc.?

VS-)

On 3/20/2010 9:21 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> Well, it does make sense that the name should come from elsewhere than other
> than Poland. I once had an a Italian friend named "di Napoli" who was from
> Siragusa. I found this hard to understand until it dawned on me that, when
> Siragusa is the default location, why would anyone from Siragusa who lived
> in Siragusa be known as being from Siragusa? OTOH, if my friend's ancestors
> had moved from Napoli to Siragusa, then the fact that they weren't from
> around those parts would have been worthy of note and been reflected in the
> (new) surname of their descendents.
>
> Why would the Poles call a Polish dance a "polka," when all Polish dances
> are polkas?
>
> -Wilson

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org