From: Mark Roberts (mu@manumark.de)
Date: Tue Sep 26 2000 - 15:57:21 CEST
Dear,
> My serious vote is for 'queue', but would prefer 'vlad'. Does anybody
> like 'vlad'?
Have I missed something? I don't understand what the name means.
> It's not obvious what it means, but it is memorable**.
Exactly. What does it mean?
> (**in American English anyhow. Looking up the title 'count', it seems
> that it is 'comes' in Latin, 'conde' in Spanish and Portuguese, 'graf'
> in German and Russian, 'hrabia' in Polish, and 'earl' in English. Maybe
> none of these have the additional meaning of the verb 'to enumerate', as
> 'count' does in English.)
As for German 'Graf': Though it can never mean 'enumerate', at least we
have the word 'graph', which in English is 'graph', i.e. a picture
associated with a mathematical function or physical measurement. That has
something to do with numbers... Were it not for the completely different
(Greek) origin of 'graph' from 'graphein' -> 'to write'. A big hurray for
classical education. This is the first time in ten years I have felt any
use for Latin or classical Greek.
> BTW, International readers may or may not be aware that defanged
> versions of Dracula are ubiquitous in American pop-culture. For
> example, "Count Chocula", is the name of a pre-sweetened breakfast
> cereal whose mascot seems to prefer this sugary cereal to human blood.
> "The Count", a Jim Henson muppet who teaches basic counting drills to
> children on PBS' Sesame Street. "Count Duckula"... a short lived
> comic/cartoon that I know little about except that it looked like a
> cross between Donald Duck and a vampire. It would be possible to list
> many others, but thankfully time does not permit...
Note that "The Count" in German Sesame Street (Sesamstraße) is called
'Graf Zahl': They translated 'count' as 'Graf', noticed it suddenly had
nothing to do with numbers anymore, and added the word 'Zahl' -> 'number'
to reintroduce the pun. 'Graf Zahl' might be translated back to English as
'Sir Number'. Not really very satisfying, is it?
Now everybody from Germany jump on me! Happy typing, everybody,
Mark
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