[Ads-l] pronunciation mess

James A. Landau JJJRLandau at NETSCAPE.COM
Thu May 26 13:57:59 UTC 2016


On Wed, 25 May 2016 22:08:29 Zone-0400 the ubiquitous Mr. Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote

<quote>
On Wed, May 25, 2016 at 9:30 PM, David Daniel <dad at coarsecourses.com> 
wrote:

> You're a funny man, Mr. Gray. By the way, Gray was my mother's maiden name,
> so we are almost certainly related.
>
<pause quote>

Seriously, some time ago Mr. Gray posted a message on ADS-L describing how his family acquired the surname "Gray" and how cousins of his did not.  Unfortunately I do not have a copy of that quite interesting message.

As a result of that message, I discovered that Mr. Gray's family had had the surname "Gray" for longer than my family had had the surname "Landau".

<rsume quote>
A propos of the last-name-as-first-name thing, I have a Facebook friend whose name is "Wilson Andrew."

Sometimes, parents can be merciless.
<end quote>

In 1984 Headquarters Corps of Engineers had both a Meredith Walters and a Walter Meredith.  MW was the originator of the memorable quote "What?  You dare to massacre my purple prose?"  Then there are Robert Adams and Adam Roberts.  RA is a writer of blood and thunder fantasy.  AR wrote a book on non-violent resistance.

   - James A. Landau (whose family took the surname "Landau" circa 1840)



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