Hello, Lesley and Listers, I will have a go here at dealing with a question asked in Ken Thompson`s posting on 7th October headed "Origin of the term indent". I am sure I can go a considerable way in the direction of answering the question. The final two paragraphs hereunder raise some points about which I am uncertain. Ken opened his posting on 7th October by asking -- "Can someone please tell me the derivation of the word indent as it applies to convicts arriving in Australia?" In terms of etymology, I will work back from Ken`s question asked immediately thereafter -- "Could it have originated from the transportation of convicts to America, who were generally indentured on arrival?" Ken then asked -- "Or could it be connected with the common term indents, which were orders for goods to be exported or imported?" Etymology means the history or study thereof of the meaning of words. The etymological situation in regard to the words indentured in relation to American convicts and indents in the context of the Australian convict system seems to me to be as follows -- "Indentured" and "indents" were words which had a common ancestry leading back to a Latin root from which we have obtained the familiar modern words dental and dentist. "Indentured" and "indents" were words based on the Latin singular noun of the classical period seen as dens in the nominative case whose genitive form was dentis, whose plural counterpart in the nominative case was dentes and from which we are led to the mediaeval Latin adjective dentalis which meant pertaining to teeth. "Dentalis" also had a specific denotation in which it could mean that a surface possessed toothlike projections. That brings us to the history of English legal documents. There was a practice in the middle ages of drawing up bipartite deeds of contract or disposition in duplicate on one sheet of parchment. The two parts of the parchment would be separated by cutting along a jagged path which people likened to a formation of teeth. Each party to a bipartite deed of contract or disposition retained one of the instrument`s parts and it was understood that authenticity was thereafter able to be proved by fitting the serrated edges of the parts together. Instruments in that form came to be called indentures. The term survived the disappearance of the practice of cutting along a jagged path. It became the practice to produce each part of the instrument on its own parchment or paper. I am sure that many Listers have seen the words "This indenture" at the opening of old land deeds drawn up long after the abandonment of the jagged edge. And that many have noticed "indentures" in discussion relating to contracts of apprenticeship. Unipartite deeds came to be called deeds poll. That term indicated that the deed had an entirely smooth edge. In another context, the word polled came to be used to describe livestock having a smooth head in the sense that breeding methods had deprived them of horns. The term deed poll has long been popularly used in reference to action taken by people wishing to be known by a name other than one now commonly applied to them. In New South Wales in the 1800s and 1900s there was a practice whereby a person would execute a deed poll declaring that he was known by a certain name and wished to be thus referred to and a copy of the deed would be lodged at the office of the Register General under legislation dating back to an 1825 act of the New South Wales parliament providing in a general way for the registration of deeds. From the commencement of the 1825 act, registration of a deed of a class specified in the applicable legislation had the effect that the general public was deemed to have notice of matters disclosed in the deed. The common law held that a person`s name was whatever he was customarily called. Deeds poll intended to put people`s names beyond doubt have now been replaced by an official form specifically aimed at achieving that purpose. I will now get back to our main business. The American convict system differed notably from the New South Wales situation in that the American colonies were not penal settlements. Prisoners were sent to the American colonies under a contract of servitude arranged between the prisoner and a shipping operator who was able to assign his contractual rights and obligations to a colonial master in the Americas with the effect that the prisoner became bound in servitude to the American assignee. Thus, American convicts were said to be in indentured servitude. Now, what about the documents called indents used in the Australian system of convict transportation? The Australian convict system was non-contractual in the sense that the prisoner did not bind himself contractually in servitude to a shipping operator who could assign his contractual rights and obligations to a colonial master. But there was a contract in the sense that the government chartered merchant ships for the purpose of transportation and it has occurred to me that a chartering contract might well have been referred to as the indentures and the term indents may have come into use through association with that situation. Alternatively, I have been wondering whether the word indents should be understood on the basis that the documents were drawn up in duplicate. Or whether we should just take it that the word was coined for no precise reason as a resonation from the system of indentured servitude which would have been familiar to the British authorities from their American experience. Lesley said here on 19th June this year in response to an enquiry headed "Musters" posted that day by Rob Coughlan -- "When we refer to the Indent we mean often the muster taken on board on arrival." There was a posting by Lesley the same day in response to Valerie Williams headed "Indents" stating -- "The Bound Indents are those that were handwritten at the time of arrival and the Annotated Printed Indents ( typed ) are those made up for distribution to people such as magistrates in various parts of the colony." I think I have also seen that indents were drawn up in duplicate by the authorities in the home jurisdiction before a ship departed. I am sure the answer to Ken`s first question goes back in one way or another to the Latin word I have cited meaning tooth. Regards to all, Andrew Fogarty Casino N.S.W.