BISSETT-L Archives

From: <>
Subject: [BISSETT-L] surnames and Babel
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 11:07:33 +0000

Hi all,
Ron wrote the "the French are notorious"
English is guilty of several silent letters and ambivalent pronunciations,
hardly surprising since it is a conglomeration of most of the central
European countries.
Some countries have kept their vague spellings and confusing diction but we
in the U.K. can be justly proud of trying to harmonize our vocabulary so
that the only vagaries that remain are of regional dialect origin. {I am
writing this with my tongue firmly resting against my cheek}. However to
keep the rest of the world on its toes our use of simile, antonyms,
multiple meanings, multiple
derivations,............................................... And so on.
Surely we need look only to the construction of the tower of Babel for the
problem.

Yesterday I watched an employee of a garage service centre type in Bissett
without a second thought. For him the process was entirely automatic but I
ask myself HOW!!!!.
He knows me as a regular customer.
He has been corrected by me in the past.
He has me on the database as BISSET.
He had my account card embossed with BISSET in big shiny letters in front
of him.........
I could go on.....
Is it possible that when writing, that the brain or hand has a desire for
symmetry???? if so can we solve the problem by dropping an s

what do you think
BISSETT
BISSET
BISET
maybe we should just go...............s
or how about the old English double s substitute...........
BISfET
Hey it's no big deal. I have a friend whose surname is THAW and this name
appears in only his family who are in Canada and Scotland, for the simple
reason that his great grandfathers writing was transformed from THOW {a
reasonably common name in certain areas}, thus giving birth to an entirely
new Family.

Regards,
James Hughson Bisset. b. 1964.
Edinburgh, Scotland.
55 North a few minutes west {Same latitude as Moscow, back into the arms of
spring!}

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