h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A39294813 - Constellations: Telescopium 'the Telescope'
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and from the NGC/IC photo gallery: http://www.klima-luft.de/steinicke/ngcic/persons/lacaille.htm

You can find it written in every conceivable variation throughout the internet. Even on the link above it has two different forms. (Look at the title and the beginning of the first line/first para 'frinstance).

I did check this with a French lady of my acquaintance some time ago, and I've got to admit that I've got it wrong in places. She was quite sure it should be 'de la' Caille when the complete name and title is used. In the case of using only the surname, either 'la Caille' or 'La Caille' is OK. But Lacaille is not.

You don't do it to the poet Walter de la Mare. He never becomes Lamare for instance.

Deke

I'm happy to go along with Encyclopaedia Britannica and use Lacaille.

OK. I won't try arguing with that.

Deke

Google France has both versions:

http://www.cosmovisions.com/LaCaille.htm

We could go round in circles or make a democratic decision, call him Lacaille (aka la Caille) each Entry that he's mentioned? I'm very particular about getting people's names right, so I don't mind adding the other variation to the already-edited constellations (tomorrow) if we're all agreed...

I'm not agreed, as I haven't seen any evidence yet that he is La Caille. I just have the word of Deke's friend.

Well, my Teach Yourself Astronomy book refers to him as Lacaille, so it must be a common spelling

So do Ian Ridpath and Patrick Moore.

I’m happy to concede that common modern usage uses Lacaille. But I think that this is just a modern bastardisation.

Hinckley Adams uses La Caille and in Star names it is Nicolas Louis de La Caille which somewhat pre dates modern times. (Constellations Page 14. )
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Topics/astronomy/_Texts/secondary/ALLSTA/Constellations*.html

Apart from the previous example I gave (Walter de la Mare) there is try one or two other astronomers
Pierre Charles Le Monnier and Joseph Jerome Le Francais known as Le Monnier and La Lande respectively.
And an actress Francis de la Tour.
None of which get shortened to Lemonnier Lalande or Latour.

From Wonky:
Traditionally, the particule de is omitted when citing the name of a person without a preceding given name, title (baron, duc etc.), job description (général, colonel, etc.) or polite address (monsieur, madame, mademoiselle). Thus, one would say Monsieur de la Vieuville, but if calling him familiarily by his last name only, La Vieuville (note the initial capital letter); the same applies for Gérard de la Martinière, who would be called La Martinière. Similarly, Philippe de Villiers talks about the votes he receives as le vote Villiers. However, this usage is now losing ground to a more egalitarian treatment of surnames; it is, for instance, commonplace to hear people talking of De Villiers.

Or try here:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/321690

Deke

Maybe it depends on the person concerned whether they're happy to have their name shortened.

e.g. Lacaille may've been the version he used (hence its popular use now), whereas Francis de la Tour prefers her name like it is. .

Personally, I weould go with Lacaille, particularly as that's the version Patrick Moore uses, and I regard him as a stickler/pedant for correctness .

The rules for names are very strange and vary from country to country. A librarian friend of mine told me that the British author Daphne Du Maurier would be filed under D, while a French author called Du Maurier would be filed in the same library under M.

There are lots of French people with names beginning with La:

Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Bertrand Latour

All of these have names in which the La is part of the surname, not as a separate word. I assume that Lacaille is the same.

...Antoine Lavoisier (chemist)...

I think these names started out as Deke suggested, but some have been contracted according to the 'owners' preference... due to 'living language'...

'...the British author Daphne Du Maurier would be filed under D, while a French author called Du Maurier would be filed in the same library under M.'

As a and having to occasionally write bibliographies, alphabetic to the author's name, this causes me dsimilar problems. I s'pose I would list Daphne du Maurier under 'M' as the linking 'du' I would write in lower case and thus ignore for alphabetical listings.

'I’m happy to concede that common modern usage uses Lacaille. But I think that this is just a modern bastardisation.'

I think 'bastardisation' is an overstatement of the case. As I've said above, vocabulary, names, surnames evolve over time due to 'living language'. Lacaille may well have been the form he himself preferred, hence its continued use by subsequent commentators.

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