Savage Minds links to The Insurrection in Mesopotamia, 1920 by Lieutenant-General Sir Aylmer L Haldane, GCMG, KCB, DSO, author of How we escaped from Pretoria and A brigade of the old army. It’s almost as entertaining as Gertrude Bell and includes gems like the following two, taken from Appendix IX – Notes on modern Arab…
Vincent Pinte, commenting at Technologies du Langage, suggests that the “de” between the “Dominique” and the “Villepin” that denominate France’s deranged and disastrous prime minister need not necessarily evidence noble origins. Apparently–I certainly wouldn’t know–medieval prostitutes customarily used only one name, their first, and were subsequently assigned surnames on the basis of their location, eg…