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Date:         Mon, 20 Oct 1997 16:13:53 MET
From: Maarten Gelderman <mgelderman@ECON.VU.NL>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
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To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L
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Subject:      Re: von v. van der
Status: R

On Monday, October 20, 1997 at 12:53:12 pm MET,
Hans Aberg <haberg@MATEMATIK.SU.SE> wrote:
>Maarten Gelderman <mgelderman@ECON.VU.NL>:
>>The `van' problem can never be countered by a computer program,
>>unless you specify the language with each author name. Americans
>>generally treat the van part as a part of their last name. In dutch
>>van etc are not used to put items in alphabetical order...
>
>  May I point out that there is a difference in displaying the author name
>and the way a name should be sorted in an index:
>
>  An author would expect their name to be displayed as they are used to,
>normally as that of their own language, whereas in an index, the best way
>is to sort is according to the rules of the language of the readership (so
>the readership is "English" if the publication is in English"). (Because
>otherwise it can be difficult to find someone in the index.)
>
I immediately admit that the outline of my previous message was far from
good. However, I dear question whether it is advisablwe to follow the
`English' rules in this case. Imagine a book on French literature in which
all authors whose names start with `de' or `de la' are underneath `de' in the
index. I would not label that convenient. One encounters even more problems
in situations where the word-in-between is not really a part of the name,
like in von Beethoven, where the von is kind of equivalent to the English
`lord' (it also means `of' but if I do not err, Beethoven was not a von
Beethoven all of his life). I would prefer to find him underneath B.

However, I have to admit that this is at least partly a matter of personal
taste (or editorial policy).

Maarten
==========================================================================
Maarten Gelderman                            email:  mgelderman@econ.vu.nl
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam                 phone:  +31 20 444 6073
De Boelelaan 1105 room 3a-36                 fax     +31 20 444 6005
NL-1081 HV  AMSTERDAM
The Netherlands