Maggie's Farm

Good questions--and what about the grammar for all those other people, besides the Badlington-Smythes? Once you get it nailed down for them, you can hardly just call everyone with whom you correspond, "Badlington-Smythe". That is, without committing something of a faux-pas.

Dear Mr. Jesus-Carmenda Antonio Mortuus Sus:

Your people have at least two surnames. One is inherited from the father, the other from the mother. Parents usually pass on to their children the name they inherited from their father, but this is not mandatory. Nowadays, especially in Brazil, people tend to pass on the surname they like best or the least common, no matter if it is the paternal or maternal one.

In most Spanish-speaking countries, the father's surname is written before the mother's surname (although there are occasional exceptions to this rule). Thus, for instance, Vicente Fox Quesada is Señor Fox ("Mr. Fox" in English), not señor Quesada, and "Fox" is not his middle name.

In Portuguese-speaking countries, the father's surname is in most cases placed after the mother's surname. In these countries, it is very frequent that children get two surnames from each of their parents, thus having usually the last surname of each of their grandparents. All the children in a family must have the same system of surnames: if the eldest has the mother's first surname before the father's, then the rest of the siblings must use the same order.

?Claro?

S.Huntington-Bexley Boothe, good thing you got rid of Napoleon when you did, as I fear the Duke of Wellington X might have had less success.

British steel will return, at the last moment, as it did in 1940. I hope and pray.

Maybe i meant 'steal' then. a young couple starting out in London could make it in the Iron & Steal Industry. She take in ironing, he go steal.

They give a whole new meaning to "Rob Roy".