Re: CHAT: "John Doe" equivalents sought
| From: | Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, May 22, 2000, 8:03 |
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At 10:21 21/05/00 -0300, you wrote:
>
>In Spanish, the name unknown people get in hospitals, prisons,
>etc. is just "N. N." /,ene'ene/ or /,e'nene/. For hypothetical
>people, there are three: "fulano", "mengano", "zutano" (or
>lately "sultano"). Don't know their etymology. Example usage:
>
> Digamos que fulano viene...
> "Let's say [some guy] comes...'
>
>These three are used in that order (that is, "mengano" cannot
>appear if a certain "fulano" hasn't been mentioned before).
>In fact, it looks like a deixis system... If "fulano" is
>"some guy", then "mengano" is "some other guy". Change the
>gender ("fulana", etc.) for women.
>
In French, we have "untel", and the feminine "unetelle", which are
sometimes used as names: Monsieur Untel or Madame Unetelle. Generic names
could be some like Dupont and Durand, which are quite common in France. I
don't know how people are called in a hospital when there real name is
unknown.
Christophe Grandsire
|Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.
"Reality is just another point of view."
homepage : http://rainbow.conlang.org
(ou : http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepages/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html)