another SOTA (the Lyons meet the Jones)

[Laurence Horn]

A follow-up

On Apr 24, 2012, at 8:19 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:

> A new, evidently quite literate and charming play on Broadway, "The Lyons", was reviewed in the Times today:
> http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/theater/reviews/the-lyons-by-nicky-silver-at-vineyard-theater-review.html
> 
> It's a "savagely sentimental portrait of familial loneliness" by Nicky Silver and starring Linda Lavin, which is fine, only the family in question consists of Curtis Lyons, Lisa Lyons, Ben Lyons, and Rita Lyons, which according to the way I was brought up would make the family (and thus the name of any eponymous play) "The Lyonses".  Alternatively, the members of the family would consist of "Curtis Lyon", "Lisa Lyon", etc.  Apparently this didn't bother either the playwright or the reviewer, who doesn't mention it.  Has this shift now become inevitable?  (Well, I suppose the play could have been called "The Lyon's".) 
> 


And now on display:
http://www.examiner.com/review/keeping-up-with-these-jones-a-rewarding-venture-yale-rep-world-premiere

Note that in this case, the playwright does in fact call his play "The Realistic Joneses", and that the reviewer consistently uses "Joneses" in his review, yet clearly neither of these facts prevented the headline writer and his/her editor from "correcting" this to "these Jones". 

LH

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