At 04:12 06/22/2002 -0400, you wrote: >Roy, you are correct when speaking broadly and generally about >such things. But, in this solitary case, BROYLES, there is no >question. First of all, if the "old boy's" father stepped off the >boat 40 or 50 years ago, his name wouldn't have been BROYLES! >BROYLES was the Anglicization of the German surname BREHEL, >BREYHEL, or BREUL (it was spelled several ways, even in the >Church records in Germany, for the same person). I doubt that a >German with one of those spellings coming to America in the past >50 years would automatically change the name to BROYLES. Why? > George, Why in the world are you bringing this one back to life??!! I thought we had beat this horse to death months ago and had moved on to better things. As a matter of fact, I have seen statements from you that refute your argument but I haven't reminded you of them because I thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie. If you have really had every linguistics course that is offered by any college, I will let the linguistics part of this die out. Linguistics doesn't apply to the question in my original note and you are the one who has introduced the non-issue of linguistics into the discussion. When you tell me that you have had every mathematics course there is to be had and have become so proficient in statistics that you can calculate the probability that there has never been a person from any place, at any time, who came to this country with the surname of BROYLES with such a small margin for error that the probability becomes a certainty, then I will ask you for a copy of your calculations and will point out your mistake to you, because there will be one. You can't prove a negative, George, and that is what you are trying to do. By the time you get through proving there CAN'T be a person named Broyles who decides to come to this country, the next man to step off the ship will be named John Broyles. Let's let this one die a belated death. Roy Patton