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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci_(Isaacson_book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci_(Isaacson_bo... The same author who wrote some

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci_(Isaacson_book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci_(Isaacson_bo... The same author who wrote some other famous biographies. I know some people prefer other DaVinci's biographies. I didn't read others to be able to compare, but I really enjoyed this one.

kragen 1y ago
Nitpick: "da Vinci" wasn't our homeboy's name. That just means "from Vinci". He was "Leonardo", like many other people, so we added "da Vinci" to clarify which Leonardo we meant, just like you might say, "Jessica from church came by," to clarify that you didn't mean Jessica the ex-girlfriend. Surnames weren't very widely used in Italy then. It's like "Jesus of Nazareth"; you wouldn't talk about "other OfNazareth's biographies". Ain't grammatical.
- cma 1y ago
  It's fine. John Smith once meant the John who works as a blacksmith etc. Whatever the original meaning we now widely take da Vinci to be the last name if we don't speak Italian.
  - dragonwriter 1y ago
    > John Smith once meant the John who works as a blacksmith etc. Yes, modern surnames largely evolved from descriptive epithets added to distinguish different people of the same given name, but that doesn't retroactively transform the descriptive epithets of commonly applied to people who lived in the past into surnames for those people.
  - kragen 1y ago
    I agree that the error is common. Try to make new errors instead of repeating common errors.
    - cma 1y ago
      Descriptive linguistics, how stuff is actually used, is a lot more useful in practical real-life communication vs prescriptive. Da Vinci is a shorthand that everyone will understand vs just calling him Leonardo. Writing Leonardo da Vinci will be more explicit but will come off much more formal and stilted.
      - kragen 1y ago
        Nobody who knew Leonardo called him "da Vinci", any more than you would call Jessica "from church" ("Hey, is From Church coming over tonight?") or Venezuelans would call Hugo Chávez Frias "Mr. Frias". "Descriptive linguistics" is not a magic trump password that makes all erroneous utterances correct. If you haven't studied 16th-century Italian, you're going to make errors when you name 16th-century Italians.
        cma 1y ago
        > any more than you would call Jessica "from church" ("Hey, is From Church coming over tonight?") That's not in common use, so wouldn't fall under descriptive linguistics. No English speaker was puzzled at whether Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code was about someone else from Vinci's code. It's an established convention at this point.
        kragen 1y ago
        The established convention is to use the given name "Leonardo", just as with Raphael, Michelangelo, and little Donato ("Donatello"). Dan Brown is also not an authority on the descriptive linguistics of 16th-century Italian.
        cma 1y ago
        The Dan Brown mention was about descriptive, showing it's popularly understood using a popular book, not prescriptive.
    - 1y ago

kragen 1y ago

Nitpick: "da Vinci" wasn't our homeboy's name. That just means "from Vinci". He was "Leonardo", like many other people, so we added "da Vinci" to clarify which Leonardo we meant, just like you might say, "Jessica from church came by," to clarify that you didn't mean Jessica the ex-girlfriend. Surnames weren't very widely used in Italy then. It's like "Jesus of Nazareth"; you wouldn't talk about "other OfNazareth's biographies". Ain't grammatical.

cma 1y ago
It's fine. John Smith once meant the John who works as a blacksmith etc. Whatever the original meaning we now widely take da Vinci to be the last name if we don't speak Italian.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > John Smith once meant the John who works as a blacksmith etc. Yes, modern surnames largely evolved from descriptive epithets added to distinguish different people of the same given name, but that doesn't retroactively transform the descriptive epithets of commonly applied to people who lived in the past into surnames for those people.
- kragen 1y ago
  I agree that the error is common. Try to make new errors instead of repeating common errors.
  - cma 1y ago
    Descriptive linguistics, how stuff is actually used, is a lot more useful in practical real-life communication vs prescriptive. Da Vinci is a shorthand that everyone will understand vs just calling him Leonardo. Writing Leonardo da Vinci will be more explicit but will come off much more formal and stilted.
    - kragen 1y ago
      Nobody who knew Leonardo called him "da Vinci", any more than you would call Jessica "from church" ("Hey, is From Church coming over tonight?") or Venezuelans would call Hugo Chávez Frias "Mr. Frias". "Descriptive linguistics" is not a magic trump password that makes all erroneous utterances correct. If you haven't studied 16th-century Italian, you're going to make errors when you name 16th-century Italians.
      - cma 1y ago
        > any more than you would call Jessica "from church" ("Hey, is From Church coming over tonight?") That's not in common use, so wouldn't fall under descriptive linguistics. No English speaker was puzzled at whether Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code was about someone else from Vinci's code. It's an established convention at this point.
        kragen 1y ago
        The established convention is to use the given name "Leonardo", just as with Raphael, Michelangelo, and little Donato ("Donatello"). Dan Brown is also not an authority on the descriptive linguistics of 16th-century Italian.
        cma 1y ago
        The Dan Brown mention was about descriptive, showing it's popularly understood using a popular book, not prescriptive.
  - 1y ago