> Referring to "Leonardo da Vinci" as "da Vinci" is like listing Lawrence of Arabia in the phone book as "Of Arabia, Mr. L," or > The mistake of referring to

> Referring to "Leonardo da Vinci" as "da Vinci" is like listing Lawrence of Arabia in the phone book as "Of Arabia, Mr. L," or > The mistake of referring to Leonardo as "da Vinci" is so entrenched, I'm afraid it's uncorrectable. I have had to fight with editors about this: You say "Leonardo," and they want to say "da Vinci," thinking it's his last name — thinking it's the same as saying "Reynolds." They think that, when you say "Leonardo," you're saying the equivalent of "Joshua." Actually, to say "da Vinci" is to say "of Orange," instead of "William." (Both from Cutting in line: What would 'Of Nazareth' do? at http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003151.html http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003151.h... a post about plagiarism including of these examples.) I, for one, welcome any deviation from the assumption that everyone's name is of the form "Given-name Surname".