[ANSTHRLD] Documentation Request - Elizabeta di Firenze della Rosa

[Tim McDaniel]

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004, Brent Ryder <borekvv at hotmail.com> wrote:
> let me know if anything needs changing ...
>
> Elizabeta	From the Academy of St. Gabriel,
> http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/arval/venice14/venice14given.html,
> Page 4 of 4, Women's Given name
>
> di Firenze	From the Academy of St. Gabriel,
> http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/arval/venice14/venice14sur.html, Page
> 2 of 6, 'da Firenze' Locative meaning 'from Florence'
>
> della Rosa	Descriptive byname, 'of the Roses'

Your documentation is damned near useless.

Do you read LoARs?  I searched recent ones for "adequ" and found
this as a recent hit, from the July 2003 LoAR (arrived in mailboxes in
early October):

  Arthur Daniels the Instigator. Name.

      Regarding the byname the Instigator, the LoI only stated that
      "Instigator is dated to 1598, according to the Compact Oxford
      English Dictionary." No summary was provided of what the Compact
      Oxford English Dictionary says about this word. Nor was any
      indication provided of why the Instigator would be a plausible
      byname in period. Such lack of summarization has been reason for
      return in the past:

           The documentation was not adequately summarized on the
           LoI: it is not sufficient to say that a name element
           is found on a book, we need to know what is said. As
           the College did not provide independent evidence, we
           have to return this as per the May [2000] LoAR cover
           letter. [Adelicia of Caithness, 03/2001, R-Caid]

      As a reminder, inadequate summarization will continue to be a
      reason for return. In this case, the College provided no support
      for the Instigator as a plausible byname in period. Lacking
      support for the Instigator as a byname in period, this byname is
      not registerable. As the submitter allows no changes, we were
      unable to drop the problematic element in order to register this
      name.

Do you read LoAR cover letters?  This was on the September cover
letter (same search), hitting mailboxes early in January.

    **** From Laurel: Time is a Precious Resource ****

    Time is something that we all value and never seem to have in
    excess.  As busy as we all are, it is a shame to waste time on
    activities that accomplish little or no good. It is a crime to do
    something only part way that then requires others to spend time to
    complete the work.  There is a disturbing trend within the College
    of Arms to take shortcuts that save a little time up front but
    cause others more work.

    *** Letters of Intent ***

    When you take a shortcut on summarizing the documentation in a
    Letter of Intent or simply do not include documentation of a
    locative byname for a name submission, you are forcing the next
    person in the submission process to complete the work you
    started. The few minutes you saved by not including the necessary
    information will cost one or more people those minutes and perhaps
    more to recreate the information. (If you don't have the
    information and wish the help of the College then please
    specifically ask otherwise it looks like an omission.) If the
    omission is corrected by the kingdom college, the number of people
    doing the rework is limited, but if the rework must be done during
    commentary by the College of Arms, the amount of time is
    multiplied by potentially more than 50 people.

    If you are unsure what is required either for documentation for a
    submission or in summarization in a letter of intent, I direct
    your attention to the Administrative Handbook (section V.B.2.b),
    the December 2002 LoAR Cover Letter secion "From Pelican:
    Inadequate Summarization of Submissions", and the November 2001
    LoAR Cover Letter section "From Laurel Clerk: Things Missing from
    LoIs".

    *** Commentary ***

    Another place where shortcuts are tempting is in commentary to the
    College of Arms. We assume certain expertise and basic knowledge
    in our fellow commenters and in the Sovereigns of Arms. This
    relied-upon expertise can lull us into believing that a quick
    comment such as "we no longer register snort-gaskets" is
    sufficient. When making a statement or argument in which you give
    an "I think" or "I remember" or even "this is not done", please
    provide a reference to support your statement. A reference with no
    documentation or support requires us to spend time before or
    during the decision meeting looking for what you base your
    statement upon. If you do not have the time to provide support for
    a statement, it is better to omit that statement from your
    commentary.

    *** In Summary ***

    The volume of submissions has grown too large for the College of
    Arms to be able to regularly completely (re-)document an element
    of a submission. If the supporting documentation is not provided
    or adequately summarized on the Letter of Intent, the submission
    will be returned so that the deficiency may be corrected.

    The high volume also means that the Sovereign of Arms do not have
    the time to search for the references that were vaguely given in
    commentary. Statements in commentary that allude to documentation
    but do not cite the source will be considered rumor and may be
    ignored.

So let's go over this documentation again.

> di Firenze	From the Academy of St. Gabriel,
> http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/arval/venice14/venice14sur.html, Page
> 2 of 6, 'da Firenze' Locative meaning 'from Florence'

But what do they say about it?  For all I know, they say it was
invented by an Eritrean immigrant in 1963.

This is an example of a complete statement (at least, I don't see
anything significant missing):
    Melisent is a given name dated in that spelling to 1201 under
    Millicent in Withycombe (3rd ed), p. 220.
Who said it, where?  That is, how can we look it up if we have
    questions?  Withycombe (3rd ed), p. 220.  [She wrote only one
    major work for our SCA name purposes.]
What did they say?
    [We want Melisent, in this case]
    She found Melisent.
    Dated in that spelling in a period time and place and
        language/culture.  (Withycombe did deal with non-English
        names, but her book was work on English given names, so I'd
        assume "English" if they don't specify otherwise.)
    Listed as a given name.

Here's a reworked example, filling in the gaps.

    di Firenze: From Arval Benicoeur and Talan Gwynek, "Fourteenth
    Century Venetian Personal Names"
    (http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/arval/venice14/venice14sur.html).
    'da Firenze' is listed in the "Table of Surnames" as a locative
    meaning 'from Florence'.

The source: the authors' names tells us much more about the
reliability than "Saint Gabriel".  The title of the article is always
needed, and it's extra important here because it gives us a date range
and what language and culture it's in (when you know that Venice is in
Italy):

    da Firenze
    Dated in that spelling in a period time and place and
        culture/language (the article context implies that).
    Listed as a locative surname (the function we need).

There's one step missing: the docs say "da Firenze", the forms say "di
Firenze".  How do you justify the change?  Perhaps that's too subtle a
statement, so: If you can't justify it, it can't be done.

Left off: page number.  I use a different browser and font than you;
the page number is useless.  Anyone going to the site can do a text
search, in any browser I've heard of.

> della Rosa	Descriptive byname, 'of the Roses'

This is worse.  Says who and where?  What do they say about it?

Daniel de Lincolia
-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com; tmcd at us.ibm.com is my work address