On Sun, May 26, 2002 at 10:46:00PM -0400, Ovation15@aol.com wrote:
do people in the UK share their names like that is they have kids and get married? like the "wright-pratt" comment. i mean ive heard of people doing that here in the USA but usually is only when children are had out of wed lock and the mother does not want the children to only carry the fathers name. just curious cause you said it may not travel well and did you mean that it is a common custom to split names like that in the UK in marriage?
It's not all that common. It's sometimes done by famous parents (maybe because they're both rampant egotists who want their surname in there, or maybe because they're not sure which parent's name will serve the kid better in the future). I doubt it's any more common here than in the US. I think the reason he said it might not travel is because the expression "prat" probably isn't known in the States (is it?) so "right prats" isn't likely to mean much. Neither Dictionary.com nor m-w.com gives a second meaning for prat, whereas the Chambers dictionary gives the "buttocks" definition (which I didn't know) and follows it with this: prat (abusive slang) n. a fool, an ineffectual person. jon "useless fact" w
In a message dated 5/5/02 2:14:46 PM Central Daylight Time, smileyweb@yahoo.co.uk writes:
<< one and the same.
guy is / was also involved with rick wright's daughter, btw - TRUE, but apologies for the next bit...
...so if they ever had kids, they would be "wright-pratts". ;-)
which is (mildly) amusing, at least in the UK, but it might not travel so well...
-- "On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." - Charles Babbage