Meaning of lying-in

[Dingbat]

Lying-in is the term given to the European forms of postpartum
confinement, the traditional practice involving long bed rest before
and after giving birth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lying-in

Since it's before and after birthing, it should be partum confinement;
it's called just confinement in India.

Ngrams shows partum as a word.

FWIW, I haven't seen partum or prandial in use; I've seen them
only when prefixed with Post.

[Tony Cooper]

Chicago Lying-In Hospital is part of the University of Chicago medical
complex. It was founded in 1896 as the Chicago Lying-In Dispensary.


--

Tony Cooper Orlando Florida

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <m6dpggphdj9gfp978...@4ax.com>,

Tony Cooper <tonyco...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Thu, 5 Aug 2021 18:27:40 -0700 (PDT), Dingbat
><ranjit_...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Lying-in is the term given to the European forms of postpartum
>> confinement, the traditional practice involving long bed rest before
>> and after giving birth.
>>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lying-in

>Chicago Lying-In Hospital is part of the University of Chicago medical
>complex. It was founded in 1896 as the Chicago Lying-In Dispensary.

Similarly, the Boston Lying-In Hospital merged with the Free Hospital
for Women to form Boston Women's Hospital, which then merged with the
the Peter Bent Brigham and the Robert Breck Brigham to form Brigham
and Women's Hospital in 1980. (The owner of the Brigham later merged
with The General Hospital Corporation to form Partners Healthcare,
which merged with a bunch of other non-profit and specialty hospitals,
and has since renamed itself Mass General Brigham.[1])

-GAWollman

[1] Boston has about a dozen major hospitals, most of them
university-affiliated teaching hospitals, down significantly from 40
years ago. The names often stick around longer than the corporate
bodies, as in this example from Wikipedia: "In 1927 the Floating
Hospital ship was destroyed by fire .... Floating Hospital for
Children officially merged with Tufts Medical Center in 1965, but
retained its name until it became Tufts Children's Hospital in 2020."
--
Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
wol...@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)

[Janet]

In article <8d6c9947-cff6-49c8...@googlegroups.com>,
ranjit_...@yahoo.com says...

>
> Lying-in is the term given to the European forms of postpartum
> confinement, the traditional practice involving long bed rest before
> and after giving birth.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lying-in
>
> Since it's before and after birthing, it should be partum confinement;
> it's called just confinement in India.

Confinement and lying-in are common lay terms used equally by
mothers, midwives, nurses and doctors. They aren't used in conjunction
with partum.

In UK> mine was the last generation to enjoy the many benefits of
lying-in. Sooner or later it will probably come back in, recognised as
the ideal start to parenting. I feel desperately sorry for new mothers
today (pre and post delivery)

> Ngrams shows partum as a word.
>
> FWIW, I haven't seen partum or prandial in use; I've seen them
> only when prefixed with Post.

Any Br/US E medical text on pregnancy/birth has frequent references to
pre- and post-partum care/bleeding/depression.

Pre-prandial drinks are as common as post-prandial.

Janet

[Cheryl]

On 2021-08-06 7:33 a.m., Janet wrote:
> In article <8d6c9947-cff6-49c8...@googlegroups.com>,
> ranjit_...@yahoo.com says...
>>
>> Lying-in is the term given to the European forms of postpartum
>> confinement, the traditional practice involving long bed rest before
>> and after giving birth.
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lying-in
>>
>> Since it's before and after birthing, it should be partum confinement;
>> it's called just confinement in India.
>
>
> Confinement and lying-in are common lay terms used equally by
> mothers, midwives, nurses and doctors. They aren't used in conjunction
> with partum.
>
> In UK> mine was the last generation to enjoy the many benefits of
> lying-in. Sooner or later it will probably come back in, recognised as
> the ideal start to parenting. I feel desperately sorry for new mothers
> today (pre and post delivery)

This must be a difference between the UK and Canada. Although I can
remember a period when new mothers spent time resting, often in
hospital, instead of going home very soon after giving birth, I can only
recall "lying-in" as a term from old-fashioned novels. We didn't have
any lying-in hospitals locally, although I wouldn't be surprised to hear
that they did exist in other parts of Canada.

--
Cheryl

[Peter Moylan]

It's entirely a question of hospital budgets. When my first child was
born, it was normal for mother and child to remain in the hospital for a
week or so - longer if problems were identified. This had multiple
benefits, including better outcomes in terms of getting feeding started.
For the mother, it reduced some stress-related problems, in particular
post-natal depression.

When my youngest grandchild was born, and for many years before that,
the first priority of any hospital was to expel inmates as early as
possible.

This wasn't just in the case of childbirth. Towards the end of my
father's life, he had many hospital admissions, purely because they kept
discharging him before he was fit to go home. The funding for the
hospital was based on the number of admissions but not on the length of
stay, so it was good for the budget to kick someone out and then readmit
them the next day. The additional load on the ambulance service was
someone else's problem.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

[Janet]

In article <in4h3l...@mid.individual.net>, cper...@mun.ca says...

We didn't have lying-in hospitals.


We did our lying-in, in the same maternity hospitals where we gave
birth.
So if anything small or major went wrong (lying in before and after
delivery) the mother and the baby had immediate access to specialist
paediatric or obstetric care.

Janet.

[Ken Blake]

Interesting. I didn't know the term was used in the US. The only place I
remember seeing it was in "Ulysses," where the Oxen of the Sun scene
takes place in a Lying-in Hospital.


--
Ken

[Tony Cooper]

On Fri, 6 Aug 2021 06:59:07 -0700, Ken Blake <k...@invalidemail.com>
wrote:

The term is used - as far as I know - only in the retention of the
name of the facility. Chicago's hospital retains the name, but the
ones in Boston and New York have dropped the name and become part of
some other hospital name.

The concept of a woman remaining in the hospital for several days
after giving birth, however, has gone by the wayside unless there is a
clearly determinable medical reason. I don't think there's any "lying
in" after delivery at the Lying-In Hospital.

The insurance companies employ people to call doctors to urge them to
allow their patients to be discharged. If an insured patient is not
discharged, the doctor may receive a call every day until the
discharge is ordered. It's the practice for any condition, not just
postpartum.

One of my wife's friends was employed in that capacity. She was a BSN
who had knee surgery and left floor nursing for a job where she
wouldn't be on her feet all day.

[Sam Plusnet]

On 06-Aug-21 6:24, Garrett Wollman wrote:

> The names often stick around longer than the corporate
> bodies, as in this example from Wikipedia: "In 1927 the Floating
> Hospital ship was destroyed by fire .... Floating Hospital for
> Children officially merged with Tufts Medical Center in 1965, but
> retained its name until it became Tufts Children's Hospital in 2020."

It evidently took some time for the new name of the Floating Hospital to
sink in.

Incidently, that reminded me of a BrE phrase - "a sink estate".

"A sink estate is a British term used for a council housing estate with
high levels of social problems, particularly crime." (stolen from a Wiki
page)

c.f. "Project".

--
Sam Plusnet
Wales, UK

[bil...@shaw.ca]

On Friday, August 6, 2021 at 3:27:08 AM UTC-7, Cheryl P wrote:

(in a conversation about lying-in)

Hello, Cheryl.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's the first time I've seen you post
for some time. Everything okay with you?

bill

[Lewis]

We were very lucky with our first child as the doctor was concerned about the
weather and didn't discharge my wife and baby late on the Friday night
following the birth (24 hours later). Turned out she was right as there was a
record blizzard and we were then stuck in the hospital for two additional days
with no chance of getting out as the city had been shut down and only emergency
vehicles and plows were allow on the roads for that weekend.

So, a Thursday night birth resulted in our getting home on Sunday. There was
some technicality where they were actually discharged before that, but we
stayed in the room and nothing changed that I noticed, the nurses even
continued to check on us, though I suspect that was unofficial because we were
all stuck there together.

We all got home on my 30th birthday, the birthday everyone forgot,
including my mother, me, my wife, my siblings... everyone. My mother is
still horrified she forgot, but for me it's the most memorable birthday.

> This wasn't just in the case of childbirth. Towards the end of my
> father's life, he had many hospital admissions, purely because they kept
> discharging him before he was fit to go home. The funding for the
> hospital was based on the number of admissions but not on the length of
> stay, so it was good for the budget to kick someone out and then readmit
> them the next day. The additional load on the ambulance service was
> someone else's problem.

That is a very stupid way to do funding, but I expect it is rather common.

On the flip side, however, some of the changes in how care is handled
have been good. The reduction in pain medications for injuries force the
body to heal faster )as well as reducing the chances of dependency), and
the quick move to physical therapy definitely improves the long-term
recovery as well. When my grandmother had hip replacements surgery they
had her out of bed the next day, starting to walk.

--
Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi. You're my only hope.

[Quinn C]

* Dingbat:

> Lying-in is the term given to the European forms of postpartum
> confinement, the traditional practice involving long bed rest before
> and after giving birth.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lying-in
>
> Since it's before and after birthing, it should be partum confinement;
> it's called just confinement in India.

Circumpartial? That doesn't sound right.

> Ngrams shows partum as a word.
>
> FWIW, I haven't seen partum or prandial in use; I've seen them
> only when prefixed with Post.

The dictionary knows anteprandial and antepartum. Also periprandial,
from which I derive that maybe "around birth" might be better in the
form "periperal"? Based on, but eminently confusably with, puerperal.

--
I try not to dwell on what's right and what's wrong.
It slows my processors.
-- Rommie (Andromeda ship AI)

[Ross Clark]

I couldn't find an example of partum used by itself in OED. Nor does
there seem to be any adjective (in English or Latin) formed from partus.
The base Latin word is partus 'childbirth' (from parere, related to
parent). Post partum and ante partum are good Latin for before/after
birth; prepartum was formed by analogy in English.

[Peter Moylan]

On 07/08/21 08:42, Lewis wrote:

> On the flip side, however, some of the changes in how care is
> handled have been good. The reduction in pain medications for
> injuries force the body to heal faster )as well as reducing the
> chances of dependency), and the quick move to physical therapy
> definitely improves the long-term recovery as well. When my
> grandmother had hip replacements surgery they had her out of bed the
> next day, starting to walk.

When my wife broke her leg she was immobile for about a week, and then
the physiotherapist got her out of bed and told her to put her weight on
the other leg. That was the first time anyone noticed that the other leg
was also broken.

[Snidely]

Remember Friday, when Janet asked plainitively:

I first encountered "lying in" in Regency novels, and it may be in Jane
Austen. Of course, "lying in" in those days happened in the manor
house, not the hospital.

/dps

--
But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason
to 'be happy.'"
Viktor Frankl

[Lewis]

In message <mn.34ac7e5842c06502.127094@snitoo> Snidely <snide...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I first encountered "lying in" in Regency novels, and it may be in Jane
> Austen. Of course, "lying in" in those days happened in the manor

> house, not the hospital.kkkk

I checked the Gutenberg collection of Jane Austen and "lying in" does
not appear. The search " lying " is only in the complete books a handful
of times.

I'm not sure that I remember much in regency novels that mentioned
pregnancy in any way at all, women went from getting married to having
multiple children in the space between two sentences.

--
German tourist falls for Christmas in LA
(Die Hard)

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2021-08-07 06:38:23 +0000, Lewis said:

> In message <mn.34ac7e5842c06502.127094@snitoo> Snidely
> <snide...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I first encountered "lying in" in Regency novels, and it may be in Jane
>> Austen. Of course, "lying in" in those days happened in the manor
>> house, not the hospital.kkkk
>
> I checked the Gutenberg collection of Jane Austen and "lying in" does
> not appear. The search " lying " is only in the complete books a handful
> of times.

One of the reasons why some of the modern efforts to cash in on Jane
Austen's fame (like "Pemberley" (Emma Tennant) and "Death Comes to
Pemberley" (P. D. James)) are unsatisfactory is that they discuss
things that Jane Austen would not have mentioned.

>
> I'm not sure that I remember much in regency novels that mentioned
> pregnancy in any way at all, women went from getting married to having
> multiple children in the space between two sentences.


--

Athel -- French and British, living mainly in England until 1987.

[Paul Carmichael]

El Thu, 05 Aug 2021 18:27:40 -0700, Dingbat escribió:

> Lying-in is the term given to the European forms of postpartum
> confinement, the traditional practice involving long bed rest before
> and after giving birth.

It's such an archaic concept that I've never even heard of it.

Lying in to me can only mean getting out of bed later than usual. Aka
"having a lie in".


--
Paul.

https://paulc.es/elpatio

[Cheryl]

We didn't have specialty maternity hospitals, even in our capital city.
We had maternity wards in the two general hospitals - I've only heard of
"lying-in hospitals" in historical references to other places. I'm not
at all sure that the small local hospital (they used to be called
"cottage hospitals", which I think was a British term) where my siblings
were born had a maternity ward. When I was admitted for pneumonia at
about age 12, there was some discussion about whether I should be
considered a child, the only child inpatient at the time, and placed in
lonely isolation in the room assigned to children, or placed in an adult
room - they placed me in an adult room with a young woman who had just
given birth. I was born in a large city where my parents were living at
the time, and all I know about it is that it had a maternity ward, but
it wasn't the one I was supposed to be born in. My father apparently got
a bit panicky when my mother went into labour, and either forgot which
hospital was the correct one, or went to the first one he found.


--
Cheryl

[Cheryl]

I'm fine - I haven't been posting recently, you're right about that. I
do fairly regularly skim the headers, but unless I take the time to read
the posts, I usually don't see anything of interest to respond to.

--
Cheryl

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Saturday, August 7, 2021 at 3:33:51 AM UTC-4, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

> One of the reasons why some of the modern efforts to cash in on Jane
> Austen's fame (like "Pemberley" (Emma Tennant) and "Death Comes to
> Pemberley" (P. D. James)) are unsatisfactory is that they discuss
> things that Jane Austen would not have mentioned.

Do they have *Bridgerton* where you are?

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Saturday, August 7, 2021 at 5:49:42 AM UTC-4, Cheryl P wrote:

> We didn't have specialty maternity hospitals, even in our capital city.

You probably need a bigger city for such specialization. I think I was
born in one -- a couple of times my mother pointed out the building
(I don't remember what it was called), and it may even have been
converted from the convent that gave Convent Avenue its name.

It was long ago replaced by an academic building for City College
of New York, but Convent Avenue still borders the campus.

> We had maternity wards in the two general hospitals - I've only heard of
> "lying-in hospitals" in historical references to other places. I'm not
> at all sure that the small local hospital (they used to be called
> "cottage hospitals", which I think was a British term) where my siblings
> were born had a maternity ward. When I was admitted for pneumonia at
> about age 12, there was some discussion about whether I should be
> considered a child, the only child inpatient at the time, and placed in
> lonely isolation in the room assigned to children, or placed in an adult
> room - they placed me in an adult room with a young woman who had just
> given birth. I was born in a large city where my parents were living at
> the time, and all I know about it is that it had a maternity ward, but
> it wasn't the one I was supposed to be born in. My father apparently got
> a bit panicky when my mother went into labour, and either forgot which
> hospital was the correct one, or went to the first one he found.

One hopes her OB had "privileges" at that location!

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

On Fri, 6 Aug 2021 18:26:37 +0100
Sam Plusnet <n...@home.com> wrote:

I trust you're not projecting.

[Sam Plusnet]

Lying in state?

[Sam Plusnet]

"Lying in" or "Confinement" used to be followed by Churching.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churching_of_women

[Lewis]

In message <in6raq...@mid.individual.net> Athel Cornish-Bowden <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> wrote:
> On 2021-08-07 06:38:23 +0000, Lewis said:

>> In message <mn.34ac7e5842c06502.127094@snitoo> Snidely
>> <snide...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I first encountered "lying in" in Regency novels, and it may be in Jane
>>> Austen. Of course, "lying in" in those days happened in the manor
>>> house, not the hospital.kkkk
>>
>> I checked the Gutenberg collection of Jane Austen and "lying in" does
>> not appear. The search " lying " is only in the complete books a handful
>> of times.

> One of the reasons why some of the modern efforts to cash in on Jane
> Austen's fame (like "Pemberley" (Emma Tennant) and "Death Comes to
> Pemberley" (P. D. James)) are unsatisfactory is that they discuss
> things that Jane Austen would not have mentioned.

I did like Death Comes to Pemberley, but it definitely did not feel like
it was Austen. I also very much enjoyed the YouTube series The Lizzie
Bennett Diaries (enough that I bought the complete collection on Apple
TV), bit that did feel a lot like Austen despite being set in the modern
world of vlogs. When it was first being posted to YT there were also
twitter accounts for the characters who were posting along with the
episodes.

There was also a spinoff called something like "It's Lydia!" that was
quite fun as well. The same team has done several other adaptations.

--
When you come to the fork in the road, take it

[Lewis]

But having a lie in is not lying-in.


--
"Are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Well, I think so hiccup, but Kevin Costner with an English accent?"

[Cheryl]

I've always suspected she was delivered by whichever OB was taking call,
although she didn't say so.

--
Cheryl

[Cheryl]

The only time I've attended a churching was the ceremony held for my
mother after the birth of one of my younger siblings. I was quite
surprised to find out much later that it had roots in ancient
purification rituals - it was a short and simple ceremony that focused
only on thanksgiving for getting through childbirth and, in my mother's
case, for the birth of a live child. I don't think she had such a
ceremony for my birth, or for that of the other younger sibling, and I
wasn't old
enough to remember if/when she had one for the sibling closest to me in age.


--
Cheryl

[Paul Carmichael]

El Sat, 07 Aug 2021 17:26:40 +0000, Lewis escribió:

> In message <pan$2dcc$d71ee676$f9448f4e$b8ad...@gmail.com> Paul
> Carmichael <wibble...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> El Thu, 05 Aug 2021 18:27:40 -0700, Dingbat escribió:
>
>>> Lying-in is the term given to the European forms of postpartum
>>> confinement, the traditional practice involving long bed rest before
>>> and after giving birth.
>
>> It's such an archaic concept that I've never even heard of it.
>
>> Lying in to me can only mean getting out of bed later than usual. Aka
>> "having a lie in".
>
> But having a lie in is not lying-in.

For me it is. I just asked my wife and she has never heard of any other
meaning for lying in. Except perhaps for lying in the witness box.

Oh, just noticed the hyphen. New to me.

--
Paul.

https://paulc.es/elpatio

[Ken Blake]

...or the White House.


--
Ken

[Peter T. Daniels]

An interesting choice of verbal voice -- I'd expect "... that I was delivered
by ...." You seem to be saying "She was delivered of a baby," which fits
right in with the Indirect Object thread (or is that in sci.lang) that DK is
pursuing.

[Cheryl]

I didn't give a lot of thought to my word choice, but her efforts in
delivering me were probably more to the front of my mind than the
thought of me being born even though both her delivering a baby and me
being delivered by the OB were the same event.
--
Cheryl

[Peter T. Daniels]

But neither of those involves "she was delivered by" -- is that something
you'd say? ("Peripheral" dialects tend to be more conservative than
"central" ones.)

[Cheryl]

Well, yes. She was delivered by Dr. Jones (I suppose his real name is on
my birth certificate, which is much more detailed than the one I would
have gotten had I been born here). All old Nan's babies were delivered
by a midwife. Jane's obstetrician went on holiday and she was delivered
by the on-call OB. It seems like quite a normal turn of phrase to me. It
could be a bit ambiguous; "I was delivered by Dr. Jones" could mean
either I was the mother or I was the child. As in so many cases, I guess
I'd distinguish between the two possibilities from the context, although
re-wording can also remove ambiguity - eg The on-call OB took care of
Jane when she went into labour because her OB was out of town.

--
Cheryl

[Sam Plusnet]

On 07-Aug-21 23:14, Cheryl wrote:
>
> Well, yes. She was delivered by Dr. Jones (I suppose his real name is on
> my birth certificate, which is much more detailed than the one I would
> have gotten had I been born here).

<???>

The attending physician's name is recorded on your birth certificate?

Was this usual at that time and place?

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <uPKdnSHs49SugZL8...@brightview.co.uk>,

My birth certificate (in a different time and place) was signed by the
attending physician, who was required to attest that I was born alive.
In that fine tradition of medical doctors, his signature is completely
unreadable. That's an optical reproduction of the original document,
probably from microfiche, which my parents apparently obtained in 1988
when I needed to get a passport. The records have since been
digitized and modern birth certificates are laser-printed from a
database. (I found this out when I applied for another copy of my
birth certificate, believing the previous copy to have been lost, and
got a very generic-looking printout on security paper -- so I'm glad I
found the older copy.)

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
wol...@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)

[Madhu]

* Dingbat <8d6c9947-cff6-49c8...@googlegroups.com> :
Wrote on Thu, 5 Aug 2021 18:27:40 -0700 (PDT):

> Lying-in is the term given to the European forms of postpartum
> confinement, the traditional practice involving long bed rest before
> and after giving birth.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lying-in
>
> Since it's before and after birthing, it should be partum confinement;
> it's called just confinement in India.

always "post-partum" in my limited exposure to these things.

There was a lying-in hospital which was on my commute in mumbai some 15
years ago - i think it was on the same (major) road that I lived in but
I've forgotten the name - I know it was operational at that time.

google gives two names - rukmani lying-in hospital and a
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsi_Lying-in_Hospital which has changed
hands and is reorganizing, but I'm sure it isn't the one I'm after -
they weren't in my route

[Madhu]

* "Peter T. Daniels" <b4ea1aed-6100-4aa7...@googlegroups.com> :
Wrote on Sat, 7 Aug 2021 13:34:25 -0700 (PDT):

in my formative years I was a bit confused about the priest

that married the man
that kissed the maiden
that milked the cow ...

I see now that he was woke. or rather waked by the farmer's cock

[David Kleinecke]

[David Kleinecke]

On Saturday, August 7, 2021 at 6:06:36 AM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

My wife is sure she was born in a maternity hospital in Gilroy, California.
Gilroy was, in those days, a small town. It's bigger now. No one
remembers the hospital. But it's still not a big city.

No one remembers the hospital where I was born either. Highland Park
Hospital in Chicago. I looked in 1945 and it was already long gone.

[Peter Moylan]

On 08/08/21 16:08, David Kleinecke wrote:

> My wife is sure she was born in a maternity hospital in Gilroy,
> California. Gilroy was, in those days, a small town. It's bigger now.
> No one remembers the hospital. But it's still not a big city.
>
> No one remembers the hospital where I was born either. Highland Park
> Hospital in Chicago. I looked in 1945 and it was already long gone.

My eldest son was born in a hospital that nobody remembers, or so I
thought. While trying to look up a detail, I discovered that it's
sufficiently well remembered to have a Wikipedia page.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodlands,_Newcastle>

It was originally a private mansion, but it was a hospital for 24 years.

My own birth certificate names the city where I was born, but not the
hospital.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2021-08-07 23:50:10 +0000, Sam Plusnet said:

> On 07-Aug-21 23:14, Cheryl wrote:
>>
>> Well, yes. She was delivered by Dr. Jones (I suppose his real name is
>> on my birth certificate, which is much more detailed than the one I
>> would have gotten had I been born here).
>
> <???>
>
> The attending physician's name is recorded on your birth certificate?

I have an idea that it's recorded on my birth certificate (born in
Ashburton, Devon). I can check if it's important.

>
> Was this usual at that time and place?


--

Athel -- French and British, living mainly in England until 1987.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2021-08-08 05:08:59 +0000, David Kleinecke said:

>
> [ … ]

>
> My wife is sure she was born in a maternity hospital in Gilroy, California.
> Gilroy was, in those days, a small town. It's bigger now. No one
> remembers the hospital. But it's still not a big city.

I thought that was true of me, but no. Nowadays one can find anything
on the web:

> The Abbotsbury Nursing Home was located at 68 East Street, and operated
> between at least 1941 and 1949. It seems to have been primarily (if not
> solely) a Home for mothers to give birth in. The location has been
> identified by an Ashburton resident who was born there, and the date
> range comes from birth announcements in the local newspapers of the
> time.

Maybe I was delivered by Rose Annie Westall:

> 1943. Rose Annie Westall, whose address was Abbotsbury Maternity Home,
> Ashburton, at 68 East Street, had enrolled in November 1920, having
> qualified by the CMB examination.

(https://www.oldashburton.co.uk/health-and-disease.php)

>
> No one remembers the hospital where I was born either. Highland Park
> Hospital in Chicago. I looked in 1945 and it was already long gone.
>

[charles]

In article <01152543-aee0-4f8a...@googlegroups.com>, David

'Highland Park' is also the name a very fine whisky from Orkney. Could
there be a connection? We should be told.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

[Cheryl]

I guess so. I've never seen another birth certificate from the same time
and place, but you have inspired me to dig out mine. It contains place
of birth (county, city, within or without city limits, and hospital),
usual residence of mother at the same level of detail), my full name,
sex, whether I was a single, twin or triplet, (and if one of the last
two, where in the birth order), date and time of birth, father's full
name, colour or race, age, usual residence (province), birthplace
(state), occupation, industry; mother's full name (including maiden
name), color or race, age, birthplace, occupation, industry, and how
many previous children she had who were still alive, born alive but now
dead, and born dead after 20 weeks of pregnancy. My mother signed it,
the attendant signed and dated it and gave his address and
qualifications, and the the registrar signed and dated it and assigned a
birth number and registrar's number to the form.

I haven't actually seen a birth certificate from my current locality
from about the time of my birth, but I've seen lots of earlier ones -
they contained far less information, and were usually based on baptismal
records. A 1931 birth certificate for one relative has the full name of
the child, sex, date of birth, place of birth (town only), name of
mother and father (and the mother's maiden name isn't given, only her
married name), record number, registration date, name of the clergyman
and the date of the baptism.

--
Cheryl

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

All this has prompted me to dig out my birth certificate. No mention of
the doctor or midwife. The only person apart from me and my parents is
the registrar. Otherwise, date, place of birth and sex ("boy").

[Tony Cooper]

On Sat, 7 Aug 2021 22:08:59 -0700 (PDT), David Kleinecke
<dklei...@gmail.com> wrote:


>No one remembers the hospital where I was born either. Highland Park
>Hospital in Chicago. I looked in 1945 and it was already long gone.
>

That puzzles me. I'm very familiar with Highland Park, Illinois. It's
one of the very affluent north shore suburbs of Chicago. Ravinia, a
setting for many large concerts, is in Highland Park. It's known for
outdoor concerts, but it has indoor facilities. I saw Peter, Paul,
and Mary perform there in the early 1960s.

Even PTD probably knows about Highland Park since there a FLW house
(the Willits House) in Highland Park.

The Highland Park Hospital is still in operation, and has been since
1918.

But you said "Highland Park Hospital in Chicago" indicating that it
was a facility in the city of Chicago. I don't know of a neighborhood
in the city that is/was known as Highland Park.

--

Tony Cooper Orlando Florida

[Peter T. Daniels]

A point of distinct grammatical interest!

[Peter T. Daniels]

I'm pretty sure the information was on mine -- we had a photostat
(reverse-color, i.e. white on black, image) of the actual document
with the embossed seal of the City of New York -- but by the time I
needed it for my first passport in 1992 my mother couldn't find it,
and the Health Department sent me a minimalist computer-printed
document that didn't have either my footprints or the signature of
Mayor Vincent I Impellitteri, a nonentity who came between LaGuardia
and Wagner.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Sunday, August 8, 2021 at 8:25:45 AM UTC-4, Tony Cooper wrote:
> On Sat, 7 Aug 2021 22:08:59 -0700 (PDT), David Kleinecke
> <dklei...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> >No one remembers the hospital where I was born either. Highland Park
> >Hospital in Chicago. I looked in 1945 and it was already long gone.
> >
> That puzzles me. I'm very familiar with Highland Park, Illinois. It's
> one of the very affluent north shore suburbs of Chicago. Ravinia, a
> setting for many large concerts, is in Highland Park. It's known for
> outdoor concerts, but it has indoor facilities. I saw Peter, Paul,
> and Mary perform there in the early 1960s.

I not infrequently saw the Chicago Symphony in the pavilion, but
also Håkan Hagegård in *Winterreise* in the Miller Theatre you
mention.

> Even PTD probably knows about Highland Park since there a FLW house
> (the Willits House) in Highland Park.

It's mostly visible from the adjacent roads, but it is surrounded
by immense NO TRESPASSING and KEEP OFF signs. I often
wonder how much photographers have had to pay the current
owners to document it. (Well, I was last by there more than 25
years ago.)

[Sam Plusnet]

I was surprised, because all the birth certificates I have dealt with
(UK) only contain:

Where and when born / Name - if any / Name of Father / Name and maiden
surname of Mother / Father's occupation ( later ones ask for the
mother's occupation / Name, description & address of informant[1] /
Signature of Registrar.

[Cheryl]

Because I dabble in genealogy, I LOVE birth certificates with lots of
details. Unfortunately, my home province doesn't have good records, and
the ones that exist don't contain much detail, especially the older
ones. There are some US states that give an amazing amount of detail on
marriage and death certificates too, once you're back far enough that
privacy doesn't apply, but not long enough ago to be before an official
system was set up. Equivalent local records, you're lucky if they got
the place right and spelled the bride and groom's names correctly. And
really, why couldn't they list the bride or female corpse's maiden name?
Locally, they often don't. Well, they might for a marriage if the bride
wasn't a widow.

--
Cheryl

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

and Sex -- "boy" in my case.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Not just Newfoundland. Nova Scotia is pretty bad, as I discovered when
I needed a certificate for some administrative purpose for my father,
who was born in Sydney in 1908. No certificate exists (I gathered) but
I was able to get a photocopy of the relevant page in the register
(along with information about three other people). Five separate errors
in as many lines.

> and the ones that exist don't contain much detail, especially the
> older ones. There are some US states that give an amazing amount of
> detail on marriage and death certificates too, once you're back far
> enough that privacy doesn't apply, but not long enough ago to be before
> an official system was set up. Equivalent local records, you're lucky
> if they got the place right and spelled the bride and groom's names
> correctly. And really, why couldn't they list the bride or female
> corpse's maiden name? Locally, they often don't. Well, they might for a
> marriage if the bride wasn't a widow.


--

[Madhu]

* Athel Cornish-Bowden <inc1sj...@mid.individual.net> :
Wrote on Mon, 9 Aug 2021 08:56:16 +0200:

and today the classic beau peep joak needs to be updated

A: Yes
Q: Is it a boy or a girl?


to "No"

[Mark Brader]

"Sam":

> > I was surprised, because all the birth certificates I have dealt with
> > (UK) only contain:
> >
> > Where and when born / Name - if any / Name of Father / Name and maiden
> > surname of Mother / Father's occupation ( later ones ask for the
> > mother's occupation / Name, description & address of informant[1] /
> > Signature of Registrar.

Athel Cornish-Bowden:

> and Sex -- "boy" in my case.

Mine (UK) looks like this:

Name and Surname _______________________
Sex ____________________________________
Date of Birth __________________________
Place { Registration
of { District ___________________
Birth { Sub-District ___________________

Certified to have been compiled from records in the
custody of the Registrar General. Given at the General
Register Office, Somerset House, London, under the Seal
of the said Office, the _____th day of ________, 195___.

All the blanks are filled in in handwriting. "Name and Surname"
shows my full name (three words), and "Sex" is indeed "Boy". The
"Date of Birth" is written in the format "Thirtieth February 1900",
but the date of issuance -- about 2 years later, when we were
preparing to move to Canada -- has "15" in digits. The district
is Nottingham and the sub-district is Nottingham East.

Also handwritten are two different unexplained handwritten
reference numbers at the top right and bottom left, and initials
and the date (all in numbers, British style) at bottom right.

The back is blank.



I also have here an Ontario birth certificate for my wife.
This is a replacement issued in 1994 and is computer-printed
on a form in English and French. It shows her:

Name
Date of Birth
Birthplace
Date of Registration
Issued in the Province of Ontario
Certificate Number
Sex
Registration Number

The "Issued" line shows the date. Both dates are in the style
"FEB.30,1900", the birthplace is Toronto, and the sex is F.

On the back is an outline map of Ontario, an unexplained
reference number, and a warning in English and French that
"alteration or lamination voids this certificate".
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "You are becoming far too reasonable.
m...@vex.net | I worry about you." --Tony Cooper

[Cheryl]

On 2021-08-09 4:33 a.m., Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

> Not just Newfoundland. Nova Scotia is pretty bad, as I discovered when I
> needed a certificate for some administrative purpose for my father, who
> was born in Sydney in 1908. No certificate exists (I gathered) but I was
> able to get a photocopy of the relevant page in the register (along with
> information about three other people). Five separate errors in as many
> lines.

Lots of people emigrated from Newfoundland in the late 1800s, usually to
the Boston States, and encountered officials who wanted documentation of
birth. Sometimes all that exists now were sworn statements prepared for
the occasion, usually from some family member, that they're absolutely
sure that Jane Smith was born in some tiny outport on a given date, and
they know this because they are Jane's older sibling/cousin/have a
family Bible with the information etc. I do wonder how many of these
resulted from a letter from Jane saying "Can you fill out this form with
the information below and get it signed and stamped by the government?
It's really important".

--
Cheryl

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <01152543-aee0-4f8a...@googlegroups.com>,
David Kleinecke <dklei...@gmail.com> wrote:

>No one remembers the hospital where I was born either. Highland Park
>Hospital in Chicago. I looked in 1945 and it was already long gone.

I just looked mine up and was surprised to find that it still exists,
and is still located on the same street, although the religious order
responsible for it has apparently changed.

[Tony Cooper]

On Mon, 9 Aug 2021 15:47:35 -0000 (UTC), wol...@bimajority.org
(Garrett Wollman) wrote:

>In article <01152543-aee0-4f8a...@googlegroups.com>,
>David Kleinecke <dklei...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>No one remembers the hospital where I was born either. Highland Park
>>Hospital in Chicago. I looked in 1945 and it was already long gone.
>
>I just looked mine up and was surprised to find that it still exists,
>and is still located on the same street, although the religious order
>responsible for it has apparently changed.
>

Coleman Hospital for Women, where I was born, was then - and is now -
part of the Indiana University medical complex*. It is no longer a
separate hospital, but the building -Coleman Hall - is now the home
of the Health & Rehabilitation Services.

At the time I was born, the postpartum patients were in wards
separated only by movable curtains. In the week following my birth,
my mother was able to socialize with the other new mothers. She kept
in touch with several of them in the next few years.

I have a vague memory of a rather unpleasant and bossy girl who my
mother invited to my fifth or sixth birthday party. She was the
daughter of the woman in the next bed to my mother at Coleman.

*Now known as the IUPUI complex because they have combined with Purdue
University. The second I is for Indianapolis because both IU's and
PU's main campuses are in other cities.

[Sam Plusnet]

That sounds like a short form certificate.
The birth certificate my mother kept & used throughout her life was of
that type, but it was possible to get a full form copy.

Short form certs are often not now acceptable for many purposes.
"Due to current identify fraud legislation, most official organisations,
both in the UK and abroad, will no longer accept a Short-Form
certificate as evidence of identity."

All UK BMD[1] certificates are copies - in that the are certified copies
of an entry in the appropriate register.

[1] Birth Marriage & Death.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

I think (but Bill van or Cheryl can confirm) that Canada officially
writes dates in a sensible way, but being so close to the USA* they can
hardly avoid knowing about the weird way Americans write them.

Once on entering the USA I noted that the US Customs required one to
enter the date as mm/dd/yyyy, whereas the Immigration Service required
dd/mm/yyyy.

*Porfirio Díaz, President of Mexico for many years, is reported to have
commented once of the problems of having a large, rich and powerful
neighbour: Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States.
Pierre Trudeau (père) said a similar thing in a more diplomatic way
about Canada. Both still true today.

>> The district
>> is Nottingham and the sub-district is Nottingham East.
>>
>> Also handwritten are two different unexplained handwritten
>> reference numbers at the top right and bottom left, and initials
>> and the date (all in numbers, British style) at bottom right.
>>
>> The back is blank.
>
> That sounds like a short form certificate.
> The birth certificate my mother kept & used throughout her life was of
> that type, but it was possible to get a full form copy.
>
> Short form certs are often not now acceptable for many purposes.
> "Due to current identify fraud legislation, most official
> organisations, both in the UK and abroad, will no longer accept a
> Short-Form certificate as evidence of identity."
>
> All UK BMD[1] certificates are copies - in that the are certified
> copies of an entry in the appropriate register.
>
> [1] Birth Marriage & Death.


--

[Tak To]

On 8/5/2021 9:27 PM, Dingbat wrote:
> Lying-in is the term given to the European forms of postpartum
> confinement, the traditional practice involving long bed rest before
> and after giving birth.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lying-in
>
> Since it's before and after birthing, it should be partum confinement;
> it's called just confinement in India.
>

> Ngrams shows partum as a word.
>
> FWIW, I haven't seen partum or prandial in use; I've seen them
> only when prefixed with Post.

In Chinese, post-partum confinement is called 坐月子 <zuo4
yue4zi> -- "sitting (resting) for the month".

Nowadays many enterprising Chinese medical institutions
operate specials live-in spas for 坐月子, with special exercise
programs to get the new mother back into shape quickly.

The spas are reviewed and rated like hotels, and the popular
ones are fully booked for months ahead.

--
Tak
----------------------------------------------------------------+-----
Tak To ta...@alum.mit.eduxx
--------------------------------------------------------------------^^
[taode takto ~{LU5B~}] NB: trim the xx to get my real email addr

[Mark Brader]

"Sam":
> That sounds like a short form certificate...

> Short form certs are often not now acceptable for many purposes.

Just call me Barack Obama.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "I've always wanted to be a mad scientist!
m...@vex.net | Or perhaps just mad!" -- Robert L. Biddle

[Mark Brader]

Mark Brader:
>>> ...The "Date of Birth" is written in the format "Thirtieth February

>>> 1900", but the date of issuance -- about 2 years later, when we
>>> were preparing to move to Canada -- has "15" in digits.

Athel Cornish-Bowden:

> I think (but Bill van or Cheryl can confirm) that Canada officially
> writes dates in a sensible way,

I do not believe that "Canada officially writes dates" in any way,
let alone a way that you imagine is sensible.

I happen to have at hand my latest Notice of Assessment from the
Canada Revenue Agency, and it's dated "May 3, 2021", which is
certainly sensible.
--
Mark Brader "I can say nothing at this point."
Toronto "Well, you were wrong."
m...@vex.net -- Monty Python's Flying Circus

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[Cheryl]

On 2021-08-09 5:50 p.m., Mark Brader wrote:
> Mark Brader:
>>>> ...The "Date of Birth" is written in the format "Thirtieth February
>>>> 1900", but the date of issuance -- about 2 years later, when we
>>>> were preparing to move to Canada -- has "15" in digits.
>
> Athel Cornish-Bowden:
>> I think (but Bill van or Cheryl can confirm) that Canada officially
>> writes dates in a sensible way,
>
> I do not believe that "Canada officially writes dates" in any way,
> let alone a way that you imagine is sensible.
>
> I happen to have at hand my latest Notice of Assessment from the
> Canada Revenue Agency, and it's dated "May 3, 2021", which is
> certainly sensible.
>

As with so many other things, some Canadians follow British examples (or
traditions, which they may not be aware are from Britain) and others
follow the US. Like Mark, I don't know if there is an official date
format. I prefer "2010-08-09" and although I'm sure some people think me
odd and eccentric, no one actually told me not to use it, not even when
I was working.

--
Cheryl

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <indios...@mid.individual.net>, Cheryl <cper...@mun.ca> wrote:

>As with so many other things, some Canadians follow British examples (or
>traditions, which they may not be aware are from Britain) and others
>follow the US.

I believe Canada Post, and perhaps other Canadian institutions that
date-stamp things, uses DD MM YYYY, where "MM" is not the number but a
two-letter abbreviation designed to "work" in both official languages.
In (bi|multi)lingual countries in Europe I've seen roman numerals used
the same way for postmarks (which I guess follows on from the common
conventions that day and month numbers are ordinal and that roman
numerals represnt ordinals).

>Like Mark, I don't know if there is an official date format. I prefer
>"2010-08-09" and although I'm sure some people think me odd and
>eccentric, no one actually told me not to use it, not even when I was
>working.

That is the International Standard (ISO 8601, to be precise). You can
pay CHF 239 to read the whole thing in all its glory. (It includes
lots of things North Americans would find weird, like the
week-numbering thing that Germans use for industrial schedules, as
well as specific notations for date and time intervals that we would
normally write in English or with an en-dash.)

[Lewis]

In message <ses4u2$b0n$1...@usenet.csail.mit.edu> Garrett Wollman <wol...@bimajority.org> wrote:
> In article <indios...@mid.individual.net>, Cheryl <cper...@mun.ca> wrote:

>>As with so many other things, some Canadians follow British examples (or
>>traditions, which they may not be aware are from Britain) and others
>>follow the US.

> I believe Canada Post, and perhaps other Canadian institutions that
> date-stamp things, uses DD MM YYYY, where "MM" is not the number but a
> two-letter abbreviation designed to "work" in both official languages.
> In (bi|multi)lingual countries in Europe I've seen roman numerals used
> the same way for postmarks (which I guess follows on from the common
> conventions that day and month numbers are ordinal and that roman
> numerals represnt ordinals).

>>Like Mark, I don't know if there is an official date format. I prefer
>>"2010-08-09" and although I'm sure some people think me odd and
>>eccentric, no one actually told me not to use it, not even when I was
>>working.

> That is the International Standard (ISO 8601, to be precise). You can
> pay CHF 239 to read the whole thing in all its glory. (It includes
> lots of things North Americans would find weird, like the
> week-numbering thing that Germans use for industrial schedules, as
> well as specific notations for date and time intervals that we would
> normally write in English or with an en-dash.)

I don't use the ISO standard much at all. Sometimes in filenames I will
use the format 20210809, normally I write dates as 09-08-2021 but if
it's for a form or someone else in the USA I write 09-Aug-2021.

I never write the date in the mm/dd/yy or mm/dd/yyyy format unless
absolutely forced to.

--
Incredible! One of the worst performances of my career and they never
doubted it for a second.

[Sam Plusnet]

On 09-Aug-21 21:50, Cheryl wrote:

> As with so many other things, some Canadians follow British examples (or
> traditions, which they may not be aware are from Britain) and others
> follow the US. Like Mark, I don't know if there is an official date
> format. I prefer "2010-08-09" and although I'm sure some people think me
> odd and eccentric, no one actually told me not to use it, not even when
> I was working.
>

I have always thought of you as a good sort. We now have proof.

[Quinn C]

* Garrett Wollman:

> In article <indios...@mid.individual.net>, Cheryl <cper...@mun.ca> wrote:
>
>>As with so many other things, some Canadians follow British examples (or
>>traditions, which they may not be aware are from Britain) and others
>>follow the US.
>
> I believe Canada Post, and perhaps other Canadian institutions that
> date-stamp things, uses DD MM YYYY, where "MM" is not the number but a
> two-letter abbreviation designed to "work" in both official languages.

I believe that when filling out Canadian forms that require a specific
date format, DD MM YYYY (with MM being numbers) is the format I'm most
often asked to use. Occasionally, it's YYYY MM DD.

Just the other day, someone asked my for my date of birth, I verbally
answered in the form day-name of month-year, and they wrote it down as
year-month-day.

--
The trouble some people have being German, I thought,
I have being human.
-- Margaret Atwood, Surfacing (novel), p.130

[Tony Cooper]

On Mon, 9 Aug 2021 19:45:51 -0400, Quinn C
<lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote:

>* Garrett Wollman:
>
>> In article <indios...@mid.individual.net>, Cheryl <cper...@mun.ca> wrote:
>>
>>>As with so many other things, some Canadians follow British examples (or
>>>traditions, which they may not be aware are from Britain) and others
>>>follow the US.
>>
>> I believe Canada Post, and perhaps other Canadian institutions that
>> date-stamp things, uses DD MM YYYY, where "MM" is not the number but a
>> two-letter abbreviation designed to "work" in both official languages.
>
>I believe that when filling out Canadian forms that require a specific
>date format, DD MM YYYY (with MM being numbers) is the format I'm most
>often asked to use. Occasionally, it's YYYY MM DD.
>
>Just the other day, someone asked my for my date of birth, I verbally
>answered in the form day-name of month-year, and they wrote it down as
>year-month-day.

When it's my choice to set the order I use YYYY-MM-DD. Often, when
it's my choice, it's something in spreadsheet or a file in which the
date order is important, and year, then month, then day is the sort
order.

When I phone a doctor's office, the first thing they ask is my date of
birth. Before my name. I assume that in their system they will go
first to patients born in 1938, then to patients born in May 1938, and
then either to names or patients born on the 11th.

[Quinn C]

* Tony Cooper:

> On Mon, 9 Aug 2021 19:45:51 -0400, Quinn C
> <lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote:
>
>>* Garrett Wollman:
>>
>>> In article <indios...@mid.individual.net>, Cheryl <cper...@mun.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>>>As with so many other things, some Canadians follow British examples (or
>>>>traditions, which they may not be aware are from Britain) and others
>>>>follow the US.
>>>
>>> I believe Canada Post, and perhaps other Canadian institutions that
>>> date-stamp things, uses DD MM YYYY, where "MM" is not the number but a
>>> two-letter abbreviation designed to "work" in both official languages.
>>
>>I believe that when filling out Canadian forms that require a specific
>>date format, DD MM YYYY (with MM being numbers) is the format I'm most
>>often asked to use. Occasionally, it's YYYY MM DD.
>>
>>Just the other day, someone asked my for my date of birth, I verbally
>>answered in the form day-name of month-year, and they wrote it down as
>>year-month-day.
>
> When it's my choice to set the order I use YYYY-MM-DD. Often, when
> it's my choice, it's something in spreadsheet or a file in which the
> date order is important, and year, then month, then day is the sort
> order.
>
> When I phone a doctor's office, the first thing they ask is my date of
> birth. Before my name.

I don't think I've ever encountered that. The first thing I'm asked
anywhere where they pull up my file is either my name or my phone
number.

> I assume that in their system they will go
> first to patients born in 1938, then to patients born in May 1938, and
> then either to names or patients born on the 11th.

If it's a computer system, then it can be made to use any item in any
order. I've not seen a paper filing system that wasn't using the name as
the index entry.

--
... English-speaking people have managed to get along a good many
centuries with the present supply of pronouns; ... It is so old and
venerable an argument ... it's equivalent was used when gas, railways
and steamboats were proposed. -- Findlay (OH) Jeffersonian (1875)

[Tony Cooper]

On Mon, 9 Aug 2021 20:31:20 -0400, Quinn C

I said doctor's offices. Whatever system is used in doctor's offices
in this area must be from the same source or based on the same system
to find a patient's record.

>> I assume that in their system they will go
>> first to patients born in 1938, then to patients born in May 1938, and
>> then either to names or patients born on the 11th.
>
>If it's a computer system, then it can be made to use any item in any
>order. I've not seen a paper filing system that wasn't using the name as
>the index entry.

I have no idea what goes on at the other end of the phone connection.

The only place that uses the phone number is the pizza place we
usually use. If my wife calls, her number is not on their system. If
she gives them my number, we're on file.

[Peter Moylan]

For a long time I got by with an "Extract of Birth", which would be the
equivalent of your short form. It was sufficient for me to get married,
to get my first passport, etc.

I have the full version now. I can't remember why I got it, but it was
probably because the rules have been tightened. Ah, yes, I see that it's
dated shortly before my last marriage.

My mother's birthplace is wrong on that certificate. Probably because my
father, the informant, misremembered. I've seen plenty of errors like
that in my genealogy research.

The registration date is nine days after I was born. That would have
been a typical delay before the father went to see the District Registrar.

The entire back of the certificate is dedicated to a history of changes
of name. In my case it says simply
No changes of name
No corrections

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

[Peter Moylan]

On 10/08/21 11:44, Tony Cooper wrote:
> On Mon, 9 Aug 2021 20:31:20 -0400, Quinn C
> <lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote:
>> * Tony Cooper:

>>> I assume that in their system they will go first to patients
>>> born in 1938, then to patients born in May 1938, and then either
>>> to names or patients born on the 11th.
>>
>> If it's a computer system, then it can be made to use any item in
>> any order. I've not seen a paper filing system that wasn't using
>> the name as the index entry.
>
> I have no idea what goes on at the other end of the phone
> connection.

I believe that, especially on the phone, people hear dates more
accurately than they hear names.

> The only place that uses the phone number is the pizza place we
> usually use. If my wife calls, her number is not on their system. If
> she gives them my number, we're on file.

When my wife recently bought a desk lamp, she had to use my name and
phone number, because I was already on their customer database. She
could have asked them to create a new entry, of course, but it saved
time to use the existing one.

This turned out to be convenient, because the lamp was faulty and I was
the one who had to pick up the replacement.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2021-08-09 20:58:42 +0000, Garrett Wollman said:

> In article <indios...@mid.individual.net>, Cheryl <cper...@mun.ca> wrote:
>
>> As with so many other things, some Canadians follow British examples (or
>> traditions, which they may not be aware are from Britain) and others
>> follow the US.
>
> I believe Canada Post, and perhaps other Canadian institutions that
> date-stamp things, uses DD MM YYYY, where "MM" is not the number but a
> two-letter abbreviation designed to "work" in both official languages.

When I first had a Macintosh with a French version of the operating
system I was surprised to see that both juin and juillet were "jui" --
someone had not thought it through. I guess that in your example they
would be JN and JL. But how do you get a two-letter abbreviation that
"works" for both August and août? AU or AT?

> In (bi|multi)lingual countries in Europe I've seen roman numerals used
> the same way for postmarks (which I guess follows on from the common
> conventions that day and month numbers are ordinal and that roman
> numerals represnt ordinals).
>
>> Like Mark, I don't know if there is an official date format. I prefer
>> "2010-08-09" and although I'm sure some people think me odd and
>> eccentric, no one actually told me not to use it, not even when I was
>> working.
>
> That is the International Standard (ISO 8601, to be precise). You can
> pay CHF 239 to read the whole thing in all its glory. (It includes
> lots of things North Americans would find weird, like the
> week-numbering thing that Germans use for industrial schedules, as
> well as specific notations for date and time intervals that we would
> normally write in English or with an en-dash.)
>
> -GAWollman


--

[Adam Funk]

ISO is the best for filenames because the alphabetical sort (which ls
uses by default) also puts them in date order.


--
Avoid socks. They are the fatal give-away of a phony
nonconformist. ---Elissa Jane Karg

[Adam Funk]

You say that like it's a bad thing!
;-)

> no one actually told me not to use it, not even when
> I was working.
>


--

Now everybody's got advice they just keep on giving
Doesn't mean too much to me
Lots of people have to make believe they're living
Can't decide who they should be ---Boston

[CDB]

On 8/10/2021 3:56 AM, Adam Funk wrote:
> Lewis wrote:

In my old personal notation, today would be T10Aug21. I suppose the
order was dictated by the usefulness of alternating letters and numbers.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Tuesday, August 10, 2021 at 4:00:12 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:

> You say that like it's a bad thing!
> ;-)

Were people saying that before Martha Stewart's catchphrase
became part of the language?

[Adam Funk]

I don't know, but I didn't get it from her.


--
Don't take me seriously, but I have a hunch that when the unknown
parts of the DNA are decoded, the so-called sequences of junk DNA,
they're going to turn out to be copyright notices and patent
protections. ---Donald Knuth

[Quinn C]

* Tony Cooper:

> On Mon, 9 Aug 2021 20:31:20 -0400, Quinn C
> <lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote:
>
>>* Tony Cooper:
>>
>>> On Mon, 9 Aug 2021 19:45:51 -0400, Quinn C
>>> <lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote:
>>>
>>>>I believe that when filling out Canadian forms that require a specific
>>>>date format, DD MM YYYY (with MM being numbers) is the format I'm most
>>>>often asked to use. Occasionally, it's YYYY MM DD.
>>>>
>>>>Just the other day, someone asked my for my date of birth, I verbally
>>>>answered in the form day-name of month-year, and they wrote it down as
>>>>year-month-day.
>>>
>>> When it's my choice to set the order I use YYYY-MM-DD. Often, when
>>> it's my choice, it's something in spreadsheet or a file in which the
>>> date order is important, and year, then month, then day is the sort
>>> order.
>>>
>>> When I phone a doctor's office, the first thing they ask is my date of
>>> birth. Before my name.
>>
>>I don't think I've ever encountered that. The first thing I'm asked
>>anywhere where they pull up my file is either my name or my phone
>>number.
>>
> I said doctor's offices. Whatever system is used in doctor's offices
> in this area must be from the same source or based on the same system
> to find a patient's record.

I get the impression from your post that you think I'm not talking about
the same thing as you, but I am.

I could have written a longer intro to the above, like "whether it's
doctor's offices or other places where they pull up my file, like
customer service calls", but I thought it evident that doctor's offices
were included.

Doctor's offices here could use the provincial health card as the index
item, because that's where they send most of their bills [1], and the
serial number contains parts of the last name, first name and the
complete date of birth [2], but places I go to don't. When I go in
person, some just ask for the card instead of asking my name first, but
not on the phone.

>>> I assume that in their system they will go
>>> first to patients born in 1938, then to patients born in May 1938, and
>>> then either to names or patients born on the 11th.
>>
>>If it's a computer system, then it can be made to use any item in any
>>order. I've not seen a paper filing system that wasn't using the name as
>>the index entry.
>
> I have no idea what goes on at the other end of the phone connection.

In my life, I've been to quite a number of doctor's offices where they
still used paper files, and I've seen them look for a file in the
drawers, and on several occasions, I was able to deduce that those files
were alphabetical. But it's possible that others were not and that in
those cases, I was never able to deduce the order.

____
[1] Dentists and optometrists usually don't send their bills there, so I
was surprised the other day that the place where I bought new glasses
(based on a prescription from a different optometrist) wanted my health
card for their file. I asked why, but the answer didn't quite clear it
up to me.

[2] With a two-digit year, though. Not sure if there's a way to
distinguish people over 100 years old from infants.
--
Quinn C
My pronouns are they/them
(or other gender-neutral ones)

[Quinn C]

* Adam Funk:

> On 2021-08-10, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>> On Tuesday, August 10, 2021 at 4:00:12 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:
>>
>>> You say that like it's a bad thing!
>>> ;-)
>>
>> Were people saying that before Martha Stewart's catchphrase
>> became part of the language?
>
> I don't know, but I didn't get it from her.

In Google ngrams, "it's a good thing" can be found from about 1840, but
really took off in the late 1990s. "it's a bad thing" or "like it's a
bad"[1] are hardly found at all before 2000.

That's a pattern you'll likely find with many expressions, though,
because of that thing, the Internet.

[1] "like it's a bad thing" is too long for ngrams, as it counts as 6
tokens.

--
They spend so much time fussing about my identity
that I really shouldn't have to bother with it
myself at all.
-- Margaret Atwood, The Edible Woman, p.223

[Tony Cooper]

On Tue, 10 Aug 2021 13:38:26 -0400, Quinn C

I don't think you are. My post limited the practice to the doctor's
offices and hospitals I deal with. Your "anywhere" includes any
organization that keeps a file of customers. A bank, a credit card
provider, a department store, etc. None of those ask me date of
birth first.
>
I suspect they are using same packaged computer program even though
the offices themselves are separate.

[Lewis]

ISO requires the dashes, and I find 20210810 much better than
2021-08-10.

--
Beer run
(Smokey and the Bandit)

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Tuesday, August 10, 2021 at 1:51:52 PM UTC-4, Quinn C wrote:
> * Adam Funk:
> > On 2021-08-10, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >> On Tuesday, August 10, 2021 at 4:00:12 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:

> >>> You say that like it's a bad thing!
> >>> ;-)
> >> Were people saying that before Martha Stewart's catchphrase
> >> became part of the language?
> > I don't know, but I didn't get it from her.
> In Google ngrams, "it's a good thing" can be found from about 1840, but
> really took off in the late 1990s. "it's a bad thing" or "like it's a
> bad"[1] are hardly found at all before 2000.

That comes pretty close to confirming that "bad thing" derived from
the popularity of Martha Stewart's "good thing."

" In 1993, she began a weekly half-hour television program, also called
Martha Stewart Living, based on her magazine. The show expanded to
weekdays in 1997 and later to a full hour show in 1999 with half-hour
episodes on weekends, and ran until 2004." (And a different show,
Martha, ran from 2005 to 2012. Her insider-trading conviction and
jail term intervened. Unlike A. Cuomo, her peccadillo didn't affect her
subsequent career.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Stewart#Later_career

> That's a pattern you'll likely find with many expressions, though,
> because of that thing, the Internet.

Someone might check for US vs. UK.

[Sam Plusnet]

On 10-Aug-21 3:19, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 10/08/21 11:44, Tony Cooper wrote:
>> On Mon, 9 Aug 2021 20:31:20 -0400, Quinn C
>> <lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote:
>>> * Tony Cooper:
>
>>>> I assume that in their system they will go first to patients
>>>> born in 1938, then to patients born in May 1938, and then either
>>>> to names or patients born on the 11th.
>>>
>>> If it's a computer system, then it can be made to use any item in
>>> any order. I've not seen a paper filing system that wasn't using
>>> the name as the index entry.
>>
>> I have no idea what goes on at the other end of the phone
>> connection.
>
> I believe that, especially on the phone, people hear dates more
> accurately than they hear names.

That's a good point. If you have a diverse population, the wide range
of names encountered can cause problems and add delays to the
transaction. Dates is easier.

[Sam Plusnet]

The questions asked of callers could well be the result of staff
training rather than some special property of the software.
The staff in all the doctors offices in your area may well receive some
form of standardised training (it's cheaper than working up your own
version).

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

On Tue, 10 Aug 2021 12:03:02 -0700 (PDT)
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

> On Tuesday, August 10, 2021 at 1:51:52 PM UTC-4, Quinn C wrote:
> > * Adam Funk:
> > > On 2021-08-10, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > >> On Tuesday, August 10, 2021 at 4:00:12 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:
>
> > >>> You say that like it's a bad thing!
> > >>> ;-)
> > >> Were people saying that before Martha Stewart's catchphrase
> > >> became part of the language?
> > > I don't know, but I didn't get it from her.

[]

>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Stewart#Later_career
>
> > That's a pattern you'll likely find with many expressions, though,
> > because of that thing, the Internet.
>
> Someone might check for US vs. UK.

Maybe someone with an internet connection, access to a search engine, and who wants the answer?

>
> > [1] "like it's a bad thing" is too long for ngrams, as it counts as 6
> > tokens.

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Tuesday, August 10, 2021 at 4:18:41 PM UTC-4, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Aug 2021 12:03:02 -0700 (PDT)
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > On Tuesday, August 10, 2021 at 1:51:52 PM UTC-4, Quinn C wrote:
> > > * Adam Funk:
> > > > On 2021-08-10, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > >> On Tuesday, August 10, 2021 at 4:00:12 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:

> > > >>> You say that like it's a bad thing! ;-)
> > > >> Were people saying that before Martha Stewart's catchphrase
> > > >> became part of the language?
> > > > I don't know, but I didn't get it from her.
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Stewart#Later_career
> > > That's a pattern you'll likely find with many expressions, though,
> > > because of that thing, the Internet.
> > Someone might check for US vs. UK.
>
> Maybe someone with an internet connection, access to a search engine, and who wants the answer?

I.e., someone other than myself, given that some here claimed
to be unfamiliar with the expression.

[Jerry Friedman]

On Tuesday, August 10, 2021 at 2:18:41 PM UTC-6, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Aug 2021 12:03:02 -0700 (PDT)
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > On Tuesday, August 10, 2021 at 1:51:52 PM UTC-4, Quinn C wrote:
> > > * Adam Funk:
> > > > On 2021-08-10, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > >> On Tuesday, August 10, 2021 at 4:00:12 AM UTC-4, Adam Funk wrote:
> >
> > > >>> You say that like it's a bad thing!
> > > >>> ;-)
> > > >> Were people saying that before Martha Stewart's catchphrase
> > > >> became part of the language?
> > > > I don't know, but I didn't get it from her.
> []
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Stewart#Later_career
> >
> > > That's a pattern you'll likely find with many expressions, though,
> > > because of that thing, the Internet.
> >
> > Someone might check for US vs. UK.

> Maybe someone with an internet connection, access to a search engine, and who wants the answer?

Specifically the search engine used by Google in ngram search

--
Jerry Friedman

[Anders D. Nygaard]

Den 10-08-2021 kl. 01:57 skrev Tony Cooper:
> When it's my choice to set the order I use YYYY-MM-DD. Often, when
> it's my choice, it's something in spreadsheet or a file in which the
> date order is important, and year, then month, then day is the sort
> order.

For computer input and output, that is also my format of choice;
often they are required, but consistency and standards are a Good Thing™
to follow.

The habit has never managed to penetrate my personal notes and free-form
text: Here, I use d/M-yy ... for no good reason I know of.

> When I phone a doctor's office, the first thing they ask is my date of
> birth. Before my name. I assume that in their system they will go
> first to patients born in 1938, then to patients born in May 1938, and
> then either to names or patients born on the 11th.

That happens all the time in Denmark. Most records are filed under our
personal identification number (CPR), which is based on our birthdate.
If the date (and name, I presume - I usually present myself) is not
enough, a common follow-up question is "and the last four digits?"

/Anders, Denmark.

[Anders D. Nygaard]

Den 10-08-2021 kl. 19:38 skrev Quinn C:
> Doctor's offices here could use the provincial health card as the index
> item, because that's where they send most of their bills [1], and the
> serial number contains parts of the last name, first name and the
> complete date of birth [2], but places I go to don't. When I go in
> person, some just ask for the card instead of asking my name first, but
> not on the phone.

> [...]

> [2] With a two-digit year, though. Not sure if there's a way to
> distinguish people over 100 years old from infants.

Obviously I can't speak for your health card system, but the Danish CPR
also is based on a two-digit year (it was invented in the 1960's where
computer storage was at a premium), but an additional bit is encoded in
the remaining digits, describing whether the century is even or odd.

Of course, that bit of trivia has not prevented centenarians from being
invited to start school.

(ObAUE: Can I use "trivia" in that way?)

/Anders, Denmark

[Tony Cooper]

That "last four digits" phrase may often be heard by Americans, but
not - in my experience - when medical care is the reason for the call.

Firms that require my Social Security number (banks, credit cards,
etc) want me to confirm the last four numbers of my SS#.

Many forms thrust at me by doctors and hospitals have a blank for my
SS#, but I can (and do) decline to provide it. I've never had that
rejection questioned by a doctor's office or hospital.

[Quinn C]

* Tony Cooper:

Good for you, laying out your problem with the logic so clearly. I
assume you don't need further help to sort it out from here.

[Quinn C]

* Jerry Friedman:

Not much of a search engine - it's an interface to a database. You can
download the source data as well.
--
Nancy had bitten her tongue to keep from asking any questions.
She was deeply afraid that Lundy would attempt to answer them,
and then her head might actually explode.
-- Seanan McGuire, Every Heart a Doorway

[Jerry Friedman]

On Tuesday, August 10, 2021 at 4:04:23 PM UTC-6, Anders D. Nygaard wrote:
> Den 10-08-2021 kl. 19:38 skrev Quinn C:
> > Doctor's offices here could use the provincial health card as the index
> > item, because that's where they send most of their bills [1], and the
> > serial number contains parts of the last name, first name and the
> > complete date of birth [2], but places I go to don't. When I go in
> > person, some just ask for the card instead of asking my name first, but
> > not on the phone.
> > [...]
> > [2] With a two-digit year, though. Not sure if there's a way to
> > distinguish people over 100 years old from infants.
> Obviously I can't speak for your health card system, but the Danish CPR
> also is based on a two-digit year (it was invented in the 1960's where
> computer storage was at a premium), but an additional bit is encoded in
> the remaining digits, describing whether the century is even or odd.

And, cross-thread alert, so is "male" or "female".

> Of course, that bit of trivia has not prevented centenarians from being
> invited to start school.

And toddlers from getting ads for estate planning?

I'm finding it hard to imagine that American school districts are provided
with a list of all the school-age children in them, but I'm also finding that
I don't know.

> (ObAUE: Can I use "trivia" in that way?)

I don't think so. "Bit of trivia" usually means "obscure and unimportant
fact of the kind that shows up in trivia contests". I might go for "that
mere digit has not always prevented..."

--
Jerry Friedman

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Tuesday, August 10, 2021 at 7:50:28 PM UTC-4, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 10, 2021 at 4:04:23 PM UTC-6, Anders D. Nygaard wrote:
> > Den 10-08-2021 kl. 19:38 skrev Quinn C:
> > > Doctor's offices here could use the provincial health card as the index
> > > item, because that's where they send most of their bills [1], and the
> > > serial number contains parts of the last name, first name and the
> > > complete date of birth [2], but places I go to don't. When I go in
> > > person, some just ask for the card instead of asking my name first, but
> > > not on the phone.
> > > [...]
> > > [2] With a two-digit year, though. Not sure if there's a way to
> > > distinguish people over 100 years old from infants.
> > Obviously I can't speak for your health card system, but the Danish CPR
> > also is based on a two-digit year (it was invented in the 1960's where
> > computer storage was at a premium), but an additional bit is encoded in
> > the remaining digits, describing whether the century is even or odd.
> And, cross-thread alert, so is "male" or "female".
> > Of course, that bit of trivia has not prevented centenarians from being
> > invited to start school.
> And toddlers from getting ads for estate planning?
>
> I'm finding it hard to imagine that American school districts are provided
> with a list of all the school-age children in them, but I'm also finding that
> I don't know.

I was talking to my State Senator the other day (he's a fanatic for constituent
services: if you contact him with a problem, he calls you himself within a day);
I was wondering why they hadn't sent me a catalog of all the services the state
provides to seniors a few months before my 65th birthday, the way Social
Security and Medicare send lots of information. He passed the suggestion
on to the governor's office but didn't think they have such a database. (Though
they do have driver's license information on a lot of people. Voter registration,
though, is done at the county level. We have 21 of those.)

> > (ObAUE: Can I use "trivia" in that way?)

"factoid," maybe?