Biba's spelling Bi

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

Biba writes:

"John H. / anyone? Not to get into a spelling bee contest here, but what is
the correct spelling of De Dion it applies to 'our' transaxles?

 "I'm not trying to start another Spyder / Spider thread...trust me. One
authoritative answer would certainly be sufficient (as far as I'm concerned).

 "Must confess I frequently go to my early 70's (Made in England) "The World
of Automobiles"...An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Motor Car. It's a 22
volume set and one of the best purchases I ever made.

 "They show the name of the individual as Albert de Dion. They then go on to
refer to the car he was involved with as the De Dion. There is a charming
reproduction of one the company's 1902 posters. It shows a stylish woman
driving one of their cars, while the chauffeur sits beside her with arms
folded. The only words are De Dion Bouton.

 "Then in the next section titled "The First Step to Independence", they use
de Dion when referring to the axle. I'm pretty sure they capitalized only
where appropriate. There is a photo of a De Dion chassis complete with running
gear (very, very impressive). To quote the photo information "An 1899 3 1/2 hp
De Dion chassis clearly shows the de Dion layout (the yellow curved beam
behind the differential is the de Dion tube).

 "There is also a wonderful color illustration of a 1972 (?) Alfetta "de Dion
rear end linked with trailing arms and a transverse Watt (note: no s)
linkage".

 "I've frequently seen it spelled as deDion as Mark Denovich did in #95.
Believe I've used the same spelling.

 "Not a big deal, but am coming around all the more to John Hertzman's way of
thinking that the Alfa Digest will be used as a resource for information now
and especially in the future. The more errors we include in our postings, the
greater the possibility they might be integrated into future researcher's
material."

 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

 The problem (if it is one) dates back to the French revolution, when people
of noble birth tended to lose their heads, and to avoid doing so often changed
their names and professed politics to seem more egalitarian. E.G. the painters
we know as Degas and Delacroix were descendents of aristocrats named de Gas
and de la Croix, and de l'Age and de la Haye became Delage and Delahaye, both
manufacturers of nice automobiles. Once the threat was past people of
aristocratic lineage could claim their ancestral titles (which meant nothing
any more) and revert to the traditional spelling; Albert Dedion could chose to
call himself le Compte Albert de Dion and get away with it. BUT once the name
became part of a company name the standard rules of capitalization apply; the
company which de Dion and Bouton formed was a thing, not a nobleman, and thus
was De Dion Bouton, manufacturing De Dion automobiles, even if the co-owner of
the company was de Dion.

 Clarifying (or, if you prefer, complicating) the issue further is that the
person de Dion had nothing to do with the development of the system; the axle
system was developed by the engineer Trepardoux. So if you call it after the
inventor it is a Trepardoux axle; if you call it after the car it was first
used on, or after the company which manufactured the car, it is a De Dion
axle; if you call it after the man who started the company it is a de Dion.

 Fusi calls it a De Dion axle, and most (all, as far as I know) company
literature originating in Italy calls it a De Dion, but ARI sales literature
originating here seems to usually call it deDion, without a space, so that is
arguably a sanctioned usage. D'Amico & Tabucchi, which is published in Italy
with side-by side Italian and English texts, calls it De Dion in Italian and
de Dion in English. British, Australian, and other national distributors
probably follow their own preferences. dug sedon undoubtedly calls it de dion.
I have also seen it spelled as a single word, DeDion, and I suspect that I may
have done so at times.

 A related question is that of the carburetor which Alfa often used as an
alternative to Weber. Many people, including at least some English, spell it
Dell'Orto; Alfa Romeo spelled it Dellorto, which is how it is spelled on the
carburetor itself. The family was undoubtedly dell Orto in the renaissance,
but I would wager that the company name is Dellorto.

 Biba also mentions that his reference book talks about a Watt linkage, with
no apostrophe 's'. I believe that is correct, and Fusi does too, except he
does not use the word linkage; it is a Watt parallelogram, il parallelograma
di Watt in the text, ancoraggio traversale tipo Watt in the spec sheets.
D'Amico & Tabucchi also call it, in the spec sheets, parallelograma di Watt.

John H.

--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided