--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 11:11:22 +0100 (MET), Harald Hammarstrom
> <haha2581@...> wrote:
>
> >What's the etymology of this element as in names like Bouma,
Haringsma
> >etc? Is it < man ? And those in -stra? Are they perhaps Frisian?
>
> Yes, they're Frisian. The -a is apparently a gen.pl. ending. So -
ma
> perhaps from -manna "of the men", -stra < -sittera/-sêtera "of the
> inhabitants", and -inga, with the suffix -ing in the gen.pl.
On the subject of -stra (and OT):
A computer science colleague of mine told me this story:
He was at a conference in which Edsger Dijkstra ("Goto considered
harmful" etc) appeared. Dijkstra was very insistent in this matter
and wasn't one to give up in the face of criticism (of course time
has shown him right).
One participant proposed (out of hearing range) that a new
international measuring unit of self-confidence be introduced: one
Dijkstra. Another one objected that such a unit would be unpractical,
since in everyday use one would only need picoDijkstra's.
Torsten