[Taxacom] proper use of "de" in a French name

[Hans Henderickx]

Splitting or omitting parts of a name does not sound well to me, what do you 
think of:

Beauvoir grew up in a respected borgeois family, ... (Simone de Beauvoir)

this should be

De Beauvoir grew up in a respected borgeois family, ....

Hans


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jean-François Molino" <jean-francois.molino at ird.fr>
To: "Michael A. Ivie" <mivie at montana.edu>
Cc: <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 11:32 AM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] proper use of "de" in a French name


Mike,
I'm an actual French (nobody's perfect), and I agree with Laurent. I
would recommend to omit the "de".

Jean-François Molino

Laurent Raty a écrit :
> Mike,
>
> Starting a sentence without a capital letter is definitely *not*
> normally an option, even ;-) in French.
>
> You can try http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particule_(onomastique) if you
> want general guidance about the formal use of such names in French.
>
> "Bonvouloir's specimens" should theoretically be the best choice if you
> want to start your sentence that way: omitting the "de" is the general
> rule if the name stands alone (i.e., is not preceded by a first name
> [Victor de Bonvouloir], another patronym [Achard de Bonvouloir], or a
> title [vicomte de Bonvouloir, monsieur de Bonvouloir]).
> There are exceptions, though; most notably, with very short names (not
> more than one non-mute syllabe), the "de" would normally be retained; a
> "du", "des" or "d'" would usually also be retained.
>
>
> (Now, I think I would qualify as an "actual Francophone", but I'm not
> an actual French. Here in Belgium, we are in a slightly peculiar
> situation, because we are facing a mixture of many Flemish surnames
> starting with the Dutch article "De" [often followed by a profession or
> quality, like in "De Smet" - literally "The Smith" -, or "De Wit" - "The
> White"], with actually much less numerous French surnames starting with
> the French preposition "de" [not that exceptionally followed by a
> Flemish locality name]. This makes things a bit confused at times and,
> perhaps as a result, we often tend to retain any "de"/"De" whatever its
> meaning. So my ears would in fact not really be offended by a sentence
> starting with "De Bonvouloir's specimens" either...)
>
>
> Hope this helps,
> Laurent -
>
>
>
> Michael A. Ivie wrote:
>
>> Not my question, which was "how would a Francophone do it", with a
>> request that it be answered by an actual Francophone.  I know well
>> how the Anglophones would mangle it.
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> Edwards, G.B. wrote:
>>
>>
>>> But when starting a sentence in English (Mike's question), the
>>> first word is always capitalized, as far as I can recall, even a
>>> normally uncapitalized article in a foreign language.  A perhaps
>>> more interesting and applicable question regards the subsequent
>>> geneology of the Vicomte in question:  Did his descendants adopt
>>> Bonvouloir, de Bonvouloir, or (not inconceivably) Henry as the
>>> surname.  I would argue that whichever of these is subsequently
>>> correct (if there was only one) would be the name to be cited.  As
>>> Mike noted, Vicomte de Bonvouloir is a title, not a surname.
>>>
>
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-- 
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Jean-François Molino
Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)
Unité Mixte de Recherche "botAnique et bioinforMatique de l'Architecture des 
Plantes" (AMAP)
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