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Subject:Re: What do you call this? From:"Jan Stanley" <janron -at- concentric -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Sat, 11 Sep 1999 09:31:28 -0400
Julie Comstock-Fisher asked
>If you have a person with an addition following
>their name, such as "Jr." or "III", what do you call
>that addition?
I responded directly to Julie, but I'll post this to the list for
those who are interested: The Chicago Manual of Style, which is
regarded as being pretty darn authoritative in matters such as
this, calls it a suffix (and, btw, prefers that no comma be used
before either the abbreviation or the numeral: Clarence Smith
Jr.; E. L. James IV).
"Suffix" is the term used by a program that I documented a few
years ago. That program used "appellation" for other
abbreviations that were appended to a name, such as "M.D.,"
"Esq.," and so on.
I'd also note that the field for a suffix has to have more than
two characters, to allow, for example for "III." Not to mention
punctuation, if that is handled at the field level.
