From nick@BCH.UMontreal.CA Wed Mar 15 10:18:48 1995 Received: from condor.CC.UMontreal.CA for nick@BCH.UMontreal.CA by www.ccl.net (8.6.10/930601.1506) id KAA28025; Wed, 15 Mar 1995 10:09:17 -0500 Received: from merck.BCH.UMontreal.CA by condor.CC.UMontreal.CA with SMTP id AA14269 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for CHEMISTRY@ccl.net); Wed, 15 Mar 1995 10:07:02 -0500 Received: from crysbio1.BCH.UMontreal.CA by merck.BCH.UMontreal.CA (940816.SGI.8.6.9/5.17) id PAA06578; Wed, 15 Mar 1995 15:09:36 GMT Received: by crysbio1.BCH.UMontreal.CA (931110.SGI/5.17) id AA03841; Wed, 15 Mar 95 10:09:09 -0500 Date: Wed, 15 Mar 95 10:09:09 -0500 From: nick@BCH.UMontreal.CA (Nick Blom) Message-Id: <9503151009.ZM3839@crysbio1.BCH.UMontreal.CA> In-Reply-To: "Leslie Glasser" "CCL:Spelling of v(V?)an der Waals('?)" (Mar 15, 9:12am) References: <11A63DE4EAB@aurum.chem.wits.ac.za> X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.1.0 22feb94 MediaMail) To: CHEMISTRY@ccl.net Subject: Re: CCL:Spelling of v(V?)an der Waals('?) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Mime-Version: 1.0 On Mar 15, 9:12am, Leslie Glasser wrote: > On the capitalisation issue; in Dutch and related Germanic languages > (and vdW was Dutch), the initial letter of multi-worded names is not > capitalised: Ludwig von Beethoven, not Ludwig Von Beethoven, for > example. Hence, vdW should only be capitalised at the start of a > sentence. > But, if you leave out his initials: 'v' then becomes 'V' to indicate that a proper noun starts and the 'van' is not something in the middle of a sentence. So in your example Ludwig von Beethoven becomes Von Beethoven without Ludwig, and J.H. van der Waals becomes Van der Waals without J.H. So Pieter Stouten was right. Nick -- ================================================================== Dr. Nick Blom Tel : +1-514-3436111 ext 5352 Departement de Biochimie Fax : +1-514-3432210 Universite de Montreal Email: nick@bch.umontreal.ca C.P. 6128, Station Centre-Ville Montreal, PQ, H3C 3J7 Canada ==================================================================