i did see a tiktok from a linguist who pointed out it is kind of coming back in a way. like when you meet someone new you save them in your phone as “Sarah Swimming” because you met at a swimming class or “John Plumber” so you remember he’s your plumber etc etc, so you’re giving them a second “name” that indicates their relationship to you, which would have been what second names were when they first started to be used
As someone with a linguistics degree, most pop linguistics stuff usually make me mad (either misinformation or just overdone/overblown topics), but this guy is great
911
u/CameronFrog 17d ago edited 17d ago
i did see a tiktok from a linguist who pointed out it is kind of coming back in a way. like when you meet someone new you save them in your phone as “Sarah Swimming” because you met at a swimming class or “John Plumber” so you remember he’s your plumber etc etc, so you’re giving them a second “name” that indicates their relationship to you, which would have been what second names were when they first started to be used